Yarash or Dagon?

[Epiphanis]

I recently got WotC's Fiendish Codex I, which offers among other things a writeup of the Demon Prince Dagon, an aquatic archfiend belonging to the "obyrith" race of elder demons, more alien than the younger and more common tanari'i.

It ocurred to me immediately that I prefer Dagon to Yarash, the god of muerderous piracy introduced in Black Sails over Freeport, and that Dagon could be more easily substituted than most alternatives.

Dagon, for instance, is far more "Lovecraftian," fitting in with that aspect of Freeport dealing with Serpent People, Starry Wisdom, and the Yellow Sign, all of which hearken back to the Cthulhu Mythos. Dagon, in addition to being a god worshipped in the real world's Middle East in biblical times, was a feature of the ficitonal Cthulhu Mythos and featured prominently in Lovecraft's short stories "The Shadow Over innsmouth" and "Dagon."

It also seemed to me that Yarash and Harrimast as presented were far too similar to each other, only really distinguished by one being slightly more bloodthirsty than the other. Rather than casting the conflict between two pretenders to the title of "God of Pirates," I'm more comfortable with it being between the God of Pirates and his arch-enemy, the Demon Prince of the Deeps. Frankly, I wouldn't consider the number of pirates out there to be so great to support two competing deities (which may be why they have it in for each other, but it still never sat quite right.)

[Pramas]

Nice to see there are some Legions of Hell fans at WotC. Dagon appeared in that book in 2001. The 3.5 version is in Book of Fiends.

[havard]

BTW, any connection we could make between Yarrash/Dagon and Jalie Squarefoot? I still feel I have to tinker a bit with Hell in Freeport before I can run it with my group.

Also, I dont like Jalie's name too much. Any suggestions for substitutes there?

Håvard

[Talwyn]

@Epiphanis: I like this idea and actually, it seems to fit even better then my approach (replacing Yarash by Asmodeus). Dagon just seems to be the perfect choice although I still see some problems...

Instead of Hell's Triangle, I'd use the Shadowsea at the bottom of which there is the realm of Dagon. A first (small) problem is the fact, that Dagon has not been banished to some weird demiplane but simply is a demon prince who dwells in the Abyss. Well, this can be solved, by simply having Billy Bones and his comrades plan to summon Dagon to the material world which is possible only when the stars are in a certain constellation.

What I find somewhat trickier is that Dagon has no affiliation with pirates and/or undead creatures. So I think about developing a template called "Shadowsea Spawn" or something like that which adds random obyrith features to the base creature (like e.g. facial tentacles like those of Davy Jones in PotC 2). So with this template, the Full-Fathom Five should feel a little more "Dagonesque".

Furthermore, the artifacts of Yarash are rather un-Lovecraftian and do not fit Dagon at all. So one could replace them with something more suitable to the ancient demon lord. I have been thinking about an old manuscript of forbidden lore that has been ripped into five pieces. Reading this manuscript allows the user to employ the powers of the artifacts as described in Black Sails, but also comes at the price of risking one's sanity (employ the sanity system from Unearthed Arcana here).

Then there are the islands of the damned - Crystal Lake island fits best with Dagon as Moab engages in the breeding of a new superior race of mutant creatures which remembers me of Lovecraft's story "Dagon". The Boneshaper's throne is also more or less ok. I think, I will descibe the tribesfolk of the island as degenerate savages (just like those in Peter Jackson's King Kong). The island of undeath is acceptable. Undead creatures are not that fitting but I have no good idea on how to change that. White gorilla island finally is the one that is most problematic IMO. The entire "planet of the apes" setting doesn't go well with Dagon and I have no idea on how to change it. Perhaps one could descibe the apes as demonic creatures or something like that (Ahunatum's pyramid certainly fits well with the idea of "ancient cyclopean structures of colossal dimensions" that can be found in many of Lovecraft's stories.)

Then there is Yarashad which should be transformed into Dagon's realm. Here I see quite some problems. First, I can't think of Dagon's realm to rise from depths. This doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Then, the encounters on Yarashad itself do not fit Dagon. Consequently, one should think about an entirely new writeup of the last part of act II - in which the PCs descend to depths of Dagon's realm in the Shadowsea where they must face demons, fiendish aquatic creatures and things like that.

In act III, the final encounter should be about the party facing the demon prince himself, IMO. This means of course, that they should be at least around 17th level in order to stand a chance of surviving (Dagon is CR 22 after all). This is just perfect for my campaign, as we will play through Crisis before Black Sails and the PCs will probably be around 9th level when start, so I will certainly have to scale Black Sails anyway.

Additional ideas:
- I have developed a Thrall of Dagon prestige class which I will add to Billy Bones. It has not yet been published on the website I've submitted it to, but I will post a link to the class soon.
- I think Carthy (and the rest of the Full-Fathom Five) should be somewhat insane (maybe Carthy less then the others) as they have messed with Dagon (remember the demon's form of madness ability).

So far, just my 2 cents

[Dionysus_the_Hammer]

Dagon sounds utterly wicked so I will have to check him out. I think part of the charm of Harrimast and Yarash are that they are so similar. They are basically the flip side of the same coin.

[selios]

Nice to see there are some Legions of Hell fans at WotC. Dagon appeared in that book in 2001. The 3.5 version is in Book of Fiends.

I bet it's because Erik "fellow Greyhawk fan" Mona worked on both Legions of Hell and Fiendish Codex 1.

[Morrow]

I've got to say I'm really digging this 'replace Yarash with Dagon' idea. Very cool. My group just finished Black Sails last weekend; it was fun but I suspect that Dagon would have made it better.

Morrow

[B Evil Kirby]

I've got to say I'm really digging this 'replace Yarash with Dagon' idea. Very cool. My group just finished Black Sails last weekend; it was fun but I suspect that Dagon would have made it better.

So...did the party all make it out alive?

[Morrow]

So...did the party all make it out alive?

They did, somewhat to my surprise. Black Sails was quite successful, I think everyone enjoyed it.

If you're interested I have something of an overview of the events over here. Be warned though, I made something of a frankenstein's monster of your baby. For example, who knew that the Cultists of Yarash stole the Eyes of the Sea Dragon (which first appeared in "Dead Man's Quest") during their raid on the temple of Harrimast so that they could summon Yarash's Son, the Sea Dragon itself? Or that I would decide at the last minute that I really didn't feel like running the battle in Freeport and would send my PCs on a wild goose chase instead, returning them just in time for the final battle with the Yarash cultists and the Sea Dragon?

Well, I suppose it is a DM's right - nay, duty, to meddle.

Morrow

[B Evil Kirby]

They did, somewhat to my surprise. Black Sails was quite successful, I think everyone enjoyed it.

If you're interested I have something of an overview of the events over here. Be warned though, I made something of a frankenstein's monster of your baby. For example, who knew that the Cultists of Yarash stole the Eyes of the Sea Dragon (which first appeared in "Dead Man's Quest") during their raid on the temple of Harrimast so that they could summon Yarash's Son, the Sea Dragon itself? Or that I would decide at the last minute that I really didn't feel like running the battle in Freeport and would send my PCs on a wild goose chase instead, returning them just in time for the final battle with the Yarash cultists and the Sea Dragon?

Well, I suppose it is a DM's right - nay, duty, to meddle.

Morrow

Oh indeed--and no adventure ever goes as scripted anyway. The players are to blame, to be certain

As for making a Frankenstein's Monster of our baby, good! Hopefully it just makes it scarier.

Thanks for sharing the link--I enjoyed reading it.

[Talien]

It ocurred to me immediately that I prefer Dagon to Yarash, the god of muerderous piracy introduced in Black Sails over Freeport, and that Dagon could be more easily substituted than most alternatives.

Dagon, for instance, is far more "Lovecraftian," fitting in with that aspect of Freeport dealing with Serpent People, Starry Wisdom, and the Yellow Sign, all of which hearken back to the Cthulhu Mythos. Dagon, in addition to being a god worshipped in the real world's Middle East in biblical times, was a feature of the ficitonal Cthulhu Mythos and featured prominently in Lovecraft's short stories "The Shadow Over innsmouth" and "Dagon."

It also seemed to me that Yarash and Harrimast as presented were far too similar to each other, only really distinguished by one being slightly more bloodthirsty than the other. Rather than casting the conflict between two pretenders to the title of "God of Pirates," I'm more comfortable with it being between the God of Pirates and his arch-enemy, the Demon Prince of the Deeps. Frankly, I wouldn't consider the number of pirates out there to be so great to support two competing deities (which may be why they have it in for each other, but it still never sat quite right.)

Agree wholeheartedly.

I thought about using Dagon at first, then changed my mind and just turned him into Cthulhu himself, with Harrimast representing "human" gods and Cthulhu representing alien beings. Threw out the whole first mate relationship.

I also got my Call of Cthulhu freak on by using everything from my CoC d20 book. So I got to heavily use the King in Yellow, including conversions of Tatters of the King and Ripples from Carcosa. Then, when the PCs finally defeated Hastur/King in Yellow, I told them about his wicked half-brother, Cthulhu.

In short, "you thought Hastur was bad? He was actually protecting your world this whole time. Cthulhu is the guy you have to worry about..."