I am considering having my players revisit Iocanthos soon, they haven't been there since I ran Illumination. I have always liked Tsyiak the Crow-father, but I felt he was a little too much for them to handle until now.

I foresee this new storyline leading to a final confrontation with a fully manifested Tsyiak, but I'm not sure what he should be. My first instinct was to use the stats for Marabas the Lord of Change from Ascension.

It seems like a good fit, but is it really? What Chaos power do you folks think Tsyiak is affiliated with? I'm leaning toward either Tzeentch or Slaanesh.

Is there anything I'm not considering here? Has anyone else run something similar to what I'm planning?

Anything you might be able to contribute would be helpful.

Hmm...

It delights in slaughter and leading men to their deaths trough their hearts desire. It's cult is founded on lies and deceit. It turns brother against brother. It holds ritual battles in which it's followers kill each other to prove their worth. Oh, and it has a fetish for blinding people.

I'm seeing Tzeentch, Slannesh and maybe a little Khorne (though ritual slaughter is hardly unique to the Blood God). I might be inclined to say Chaos Undivided but if you want an affiliation, I'd say Tzeentch... deceit, treachery, infighting. Of course, Tzeentch is my favorite Chaos God so I'm a little biased in that direction.

I think Tzeentch would work pretty well. That will make things fairly easy as far as coming up with the stats for him too. I can tweak Marabas a little, maybe add or remove some traits.

Ever since Abbbot Tamas of Shale appeared in The House of Dust and Ash, I've been thinking of how Tsyiak's cult has been growing in influence on Iocanthos.

I know I'd like to involve the Horde of King Skull and the armies of Seth the voice.

The kernel of the idea I have is this: Seth the Voice's armies have grown large enough to threaten the King Skull. Tensions are mounting to the point that the munitorium is worried about the next ghostfire pollen tithe.

The Adeptus Arbites are sent in to investigate maybe they go missing, or maybe they find something suspicious enough to warrant calling in the =I=. That's where my players come in.

As they gather intelligence on the Horde and the Voicers it should become obvious to them that King Skull is hiding something, he dabbles in sorcery and other dark pursuits while the Voicers are a bunch of hooting lunatics crazy for the God-Emperor (Redemptionists if I remember correctly.)

But things are more complicated than that.:

I'm thinking that Tsyiak has influence over both factions and is setting them against one another to see who is more worthy of his Grace. Tsyiak's influence over Seth's armies would be much more subtle than his influence over King Skull. Seth sees Skull's corruption and uses it as an excuse to lead his people against him. Skull sees an ambitious usurper and reacts accordingly.

Aaaand...this is where I come to a a dead end. Does anyone have any ideas?

Ferau said:

Yeah... add PCs and bring to a vigorous boil.

Let the two factions start fighting. Let the PCs loose in the situation and see how their actions influence events. Also, and here is my deepest secret as a GM, listen to whatever crazy ideas or theories your players come up with to explain what's going on and/or will happen next. Use them to inspire you. Let your players shape what happens.

It sounds to me like you have a great campaign in the making. I look forward to hearing how it goes.

Hi,

I would like to suggest not to tailore him to any of the four gods. While these are the four most mightiest daemonic entities as far as mankind knows, I (for myself) start to find the concept of "relating" any other major daemon to one of them rather limiting and railroading. If your minds "flocks" to one of the four, you start to think in terms of the four and nothing else.

My suggesting: work on the "this would be cool" base. Yeah, "cool" (or "kewl") good a bad reputation recently. But we are talking about the manifested stuff of nightmares here.

Powers for the crow father:
I do not have Ascension, so I cannot tell if basing things on something there is good or bad. Anyway, think about the cult around him first. The natural choice is just another warband.... but how about a trade outpost far from Port Suffering that prospers despite the raiders in the area? And strange things happening there? The local "Chief in Charge" will tend to blame any strange things on raiders and warbands. And these ARE orchestrated against the outpost. But not all of them. Two "tribes" recognized that one tribe settles within the outpost that is worshipping the crow father. These tribes try to get in (one by assault, one by infiltration) to find the high priest of the cult and kill him and all of his followers.

The task of the pc would be to

- find out about the strange mechanismen in the warband attacks
- find out about the strange happenings INSIDE the outpost
- perhaps talking to the two tribes whose leaders are NOT under the wing of the crow father & finding a way of not destroying the outpost
-ulitmately, finding the cult, the host for the CrowFather and killing (hopefully BEFORE all the slaughter allows him to emerge in all glory (time limit!!)

While Tzeentch certainly fits the birds and eyes symbolism, I'd probably make him unaffiliated.

As for the storyline... I'd suggest thinking of how people would act and then writing up a timeline of events that would happen if the pcs do not interfere (day x: Seth gets word of Skull's pet sorcerer; day x+1: Seth rallies his army to take villages a, b and c from Skull; day x+20: Skull notices Seth's actions and slowly changes the course of his army to intercept them on their return trip). When PCs act in a way that interferes with these actions, think about how it might change them and how the other actors may react to the PCs.

I know its off topic, but if you was to invent some Daemonic pact you could get from the Crow Father what would you gain? and what would the price be?

im thinking some sort of fellowship bonus when trying to manipulate others or just plain decieving them. could use some other ideas though

My take on the Crowfather is that he is a major daemon with his own agenda. Sure, you could fit his aspirations into one of the four Ruinous Powers, but it (gender is meaningless to a demon) seems to be playing it's own game. If you plan on having a final confrontation with his manifested form I would recommend making your own custom Demon Prince. A Bringer of Change is certainly a good place to start, but it is not an exact fit.

he can be a demon price of chaos undivided since there are little aspects of each power that are expressed.... I will be using him over and over since it is a warp entity that they have pissed off 2 times in my story.

no to a slaneeshi daemon, gender is really all they got

I agree with the people who say it should be undefined. The average Imperial citizen has no idea there are Four Ruinous Powers, nor are they aware of any real hierarchy within. Even Inquisitors are not absolutely sure themselves, it is only what you can glean from firsthand experience with Daemons, and usually you don't get to have too many of those and come away alive, or sane.

You can easily make the Crow Father a Daemon, and not state at all what his affiliation is, as I think it would be his own. You can leave it at that, not even you, the GM, knowing to make it more mysterious as well as to show to the players that this is how the world of Warhammer 40k is when you are in it, unlike the tabletop game which provides the player with omniscience. If you have to have a reason, it could be Undivided, or perhaps it is more closely aligned with other Chaos Gods that are not as powerful as the major Four (since they have a monopoly on the biggest emotions within the universe).