Canonfire!

Sat Nov 24, 2012 1:44 am Thrommel and Fragarach

*Spoiler Alert! - If you are playing The Temple of Elemental Evil then this post has a couple of spoilers!*

Okay so I'm running The Temple of Elemental Evil at the moment. As I was reading through the material I noticed that Prince Thrommel, a Paladin Lord was in possession of the CG sword Fragarach. A sword that causes damage to and stuns any Lawful wielder just by them holding the blade.

I'd be interested to hear any of your opinions on this unlikely pairing!

One thought that I had was that Trithereon gifted the weapon to Prince Thrommel before the Battle of Emridy Meadows to help him overthrow the oppressive evil of the Temple and granted him the boon of being able to wield the blade without taking damage.

Sat Nov 24, 2012 5:52 am

The simplest fix I've seen for Fragarach is to make it LG and reverse its effects.

Sat Nov 24, 2012 11:15 am

That would definitely be the most practical approach but it seems such a mismatch / oversight it almost begs incorporating into the story somehow! Maybe I'm just a sucker for drama! Happy

Sat Nov 24, 2012 11:17 am

Sat Nov 24, 2012 11:25 am

I hope a little bit of both Smillan!!

Sat Nov 24, 2012 5:28 pm

Is Fragarach intelligent? If so, the two may have come to an agreement. The Answerer is chaotic, after all. It might decide to go along for awhile. Or Thrommel might just be winning all the ego contests.

Sat Nov 24, 2012 5:45 pm

If memory serves me correctly, according to what my friend told me who owns the module, Fragarach is intelligent, but I don't recall the specifics of the blade...or Thrommel...except one...but it is a spoiler! Shocked

-Lanthorn

Sat Nov 24, 2012 6:31 pm

In ToEE Fragarach is not intelligent but I believe in either a issue of Dragon or one of the 3E books there is a version that is intelligent.

As for the CG alignment of the blade I have heard that it was either a editorial mistake(ie. the editor missed the fact that a LG Paladin could not wield a CG sword) or that Gygax was going to introduce Paladins of alignments other than LG.

And here is a Canonfire article from awhile back http://www.canonfire.com/cf/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=338&mode=&order=0&thold=0

Sat Nov 24, 2012 6:47 pm

Those are several good suggestions, but I like the one where Trithereon gifted the intelligent Fragarach to Prince Thrommel as a test. Thrommel defeated the powerful sword in a contest of wills, thus earning the right to wield it against evil in the Battle of Emridy Meadows.

Good gods can work together against evil, even if they feel it necessary to make such cooperation difficult for their followers to apply. rolleyes

SirXaris

Sat Nov 24, 2012 7:29 pm

Sun Nov 25, 2012 12:53 pm

Thanks for the feedback everyone! I must admit that I'm maybe a bit disappointed that it was an editorial error though!

It's also too late for me to ammend the blade to LG as I'd already gone with the gift from Trithereon angle to tie in a player playing a cleric of that god to the story.

Time to get my thinking-cap on and decide which explanation I'm going with.

I quite like the test from Trithereon angle or maybe Thrommel is secretly a bit of a (CG) rebel!