Discord
Changelog
So when rolling up each new character, I, being the reasonably proficent player that I am, prefer to get on Google and look up every relevant tidbit that I need to know in order to play such a character. Whether those tidbits come from the Forgotten Realms wiki, the Candlekeep forums, Wikipedia, various other sites dedicated to other NWN servers, the book reviews on Amazon or whatever, I try to soak up as much lore as I can before embarking on that maiden voyage with my newest NWN character, if only to avoid the occasional RP-related faux pas.
So I got to reading up on Leira (Ed Greenwood's Goddess of Deception, conceived all the way back during his own tabletop D&D games) before running Corella through the paces, paying paticular note to her demise (or alleged demise) at the hands of Scott Ciensen's misbegotten and overhyped Mary Sue and Kratos also-ran, Cyric. And a number of questions arose, questions which may be difficult to answer to satisfaction because the three stars of this play are two Gods of Falsehood (Mask and Leira) and one greedy little bastard who aspires to be such just because he's a shallow, one-dimensional powermonger and he simply can't be content with three or four portfolios (Cyric). And so, a rough timeline:
1) In the beginning, Mask and Leira are allies. With all of those Lawful Good gods and their pet Boy Scouts breathing down their necks, they pretty much needed to work together anyway. Having something in common made for good conversation between the two, I assume. Mask also maintains good relations with his mother Shar (Goddess of Night and sworn enemy of Mystra, Goddess of Magic), while Leira hangs out with Azuth, Mystra's favorite underling and weaver of many, many spells. Maybe Mask and Leira have some kind of Romeo-and-Juliet sort of relationship going on. They're a couple of really shady gods, so who knows?
2) At some point, Bane (the God of Strife), Bhaal (the God of Murder) and Myrkul (the God of the Dead) posse up and become the Dead Three. In 1358 DR, Bane and Myrkul send Bhaal out for pizza and beer (or something), and while he's gone, Bane and Myrkul get together and steal Ao's Tablets of Fate. This royally ticks Ao off and, in a feat of disproportionate retaliation, he decides that all the gods suck at doing their jobs and subsequently makes all of them (except for Helm, who's still on guard duty) go walkabout on Abeir-Toril. Enter the Time of Troubles/Avatar Crisis/Godswar/whatever.
3) A band of mortal adventurers gets together and goes adventuring; by name, they are Kelemvor Lyonsbane, Cyric, Adon of Sune and Midnight. Cyric kicks things off by bungling a simple magic item fetch and getting himself captured by frost giants. Kelemvor randomly shows up and busts Cyric out. Kelemvor and Cyric then hook up with Midnight and Adon, Bane (our favorite God of Strife and co-perpetrator of the Time of Troubles) takes a shine to Kelemvor for some reason and removes his lycanthropy, and the Awesome Foursome heads out to find the Tablets of Fate and return them to Lord Ao, apparently because Bane didn't have the balls to do it himself. Much adventure ensues.
3) For some reason, Mask gets a big idea and morphs into the god-slaying sword Godsbane (as later named by Cyric), conveniently located where some halfling called Sneakabout could find him. Sneakabout grabs Godsbane and continues on his merry way.
4) Cyric finds Sneakabout, says "Cool sword, dude!", kills Sneakabout and takes Godsbane.
5) Cyric tries to dominate Godsbane by force of will. As a result, Mask gets pissed off at Cyric.
6) Cyric decides to go after bigger XP by taking his shiny new sentient magic sword-with-a-god-inside and killing Bhaal with it. Bane and Torm wipe each other off the map at around the same time, and Midnight absorbs Mystra's power (since Helm had already killed Mystra over some stupid trespassing charge) and nukes Myrkul to ashes in a spectacular aerial battle over Waterdeep about two months later. Ao brings Torm back to life soonafter because he thinks Torm's the coolest dude, but Bane stays dead. But by that point, Bhaal and Bane have already put their aces in the hole in hope of future resurrection; Bhaal has a bunch of Bhaalspawn running around, and Bane has already fathered that half-devil son with the god-awful name that nobody can pronounce. Aside from that, the Dead Three are now, well, dead.
7) While they're all hanging out with Elminster atop Blackstaff Tower, Cyric draws Godsbane and lops Kelemvor's head off with a totally radical Sneak Attack, just for the hell of it. Out of spite for Cyric, Mask grabs Kelemvor's soul and tucks it away for safekeeping.
8) Ao gets his stupid tablets back, calls off the Time of Troubles and starts handing out godhoods. Ao, figuring that Midnight did a pretty good job of channeling Mystra's essence and obliterating Myrkul with it, makes Midnight the new Mystra. Ao then casts Polymorph Self Into Perfect Idiot and gives Cyric all the powers of the Dead Three. Because Scott Ciensen's a crappy author, that's why.
9) Mask sneaks off and cuts a deal with the new Mystra. Cyric must take a dive, so they bump their heads together and come up with a way to take him out.
10) Meanwhile, Cyric is reeling with his newfound godhood. He's now the God of Murder, Strife and the Dead. He gets even more cocky and decides that he's the ultimate multitasker, so he takes up Godsbane and goes after Leira. Soonafter, we have Cyric, God of Murder, Strife, the Dead and Deception and Illusion. Curiously enough, even though all of the clerics following Bane, Myrkul and Bhaal lost all of their divine powers--and their followers--right after those deities bit the dust, Leira's collective clergies in Simbral and Samarach are still operating, apparently no worse for wear.
11) Cyric finally takes off the dunce hat and realizes that Mask/Godsbane has been playing him all along, so Cyric gets piqued and snaps Godsbane in two, thus greatly weakening Mask. Cyric then tacks "God of Murder, Strife, the Dead, Deception, Illusion and Thieves and Intrigue" to his resumé in a bid to impress future employers and/or land that elusive workplace promotion.
12) Mask says "Well, screw you too!", sets Kelemvor free and gives Kelemvor a 44-ounce can of Whoop-Ass. Despite having the largely undeserved title of Greater Deity by this point (again, screw you, Scott Ciensen and Troy Denning!), Cyric completely wusses out. Kelemvor forcibly evicts Cyric from the City of the Dead and, with Ao and Jergal giving him the thumbs up, becomes the new God of the Dead.
13) Mask then follows through by sending Kezef the Big, Ferocious, Cyric-Killing God-Dog to finish Cyric off, but Cyric somehow turns Kezef against Mask. Kezef rages out and bites off Mask's arm/leg/generic appendage, which makes Mask an even bigger wimp. Cyric still sucks, and now we're just waiting for Cyric to recover his gall and kill Mystra so he can get super-glued to the Supreme Throne for a millenium or two.
...and the rest is history.
But what really happened?
Cyric killed off Bhaal, Bhaal became a dead god and Bhaal's cults either petered out of existence or stuck around until Cyric became the God of Murder so they could convert to that church instead. Torm killed off Bane, Bane became a dead god and Bane's cults either petered out of existence or stuck around until Alphabet Xvim attained godhood and took Dad's Strife portfolio back from Cyric so they could form the Church of Whateverthehell Xvim, keeping the porch light on for Bane until Bane could come ripping out of Xvim's chest Alien-style and reclaim his throne. The same thing happened with Myrkul and his death cults; Midnight nuked Myrkul to smithereens, Myrkul's essence got trapped inside the Crown of Horns and his followers either died off or hooked up with Cyric's clergy after Myrkul stopped answering their calls.
But what about Leira's faithful? Well, she is (was?) the Goddess of Deception, and her followers are compulsive liars and deceivers, every last one of them (except when chatting with each other...maybe). If Leira's well and truly dead, then the Leirans are doing a wonderful job of bluffing and covering for her. If she's alive, well, the Leirans are doing a wonderful job of hiding that too. No one's really sure what Leira's status is; Lord Ao himself could be in the dark here. So the way I (and assorted people on the Candlekeep forums) see it, this could mean that the Super-Mysterious Leira-Cyric Title Bout of 1358 came to any one of four different possible outcomes:
1) Cyric Won, Leira Died.
At the time of the battle, Cyric was out of his depth. Bhaal had his sneaky little assassins, but he was pretty much an in-your-face kind of deity...not so hard to kill when you have a very sharp god-sword in your hand. Killing Sneakabout may have demanded keen eyes and ears, but Sneakabout was still no God of Deception. So Mask swallowed his resentment just long enough to help Cyric strike down Leira by getting Cyric past Leira's illusions, ruses, misdirections, Hail Mary passes and other deceitful gambits; Mask himself knows a thing or two about deception, after all.
So why would Mask betray Leira on behalf of some wet-behind-the-ears upstart? Well, maybe Mask was just being evil for the sake of being evil. Maybe Shar had been leaning on him, saying, "If you don't get rid of that Azuth-loving bitch right bloody now, I'm disowning you and barring you from all future family reunions!" Or maybe Mask secretly coveted Leira's portfolio, and he figured that he could help Cyric kill Leira, Cyric would take Leira's portfolio, then Mask could kill Cyric, take his portfolio and become the new God of Thieves, Intrigue, Deception and Illusion. Whether Mask intended to keep the Strife, Murder and The Dead portfolios--or hand them off to some other god--is anyone's guess, but Mask doesn't strike me as being the bloodthirsty, kill-crazy sort.
As for Leira's clerics (and how and why they apparently retained their power after Leira's demise), either they're really good at bluffing or Cyric put Leira's powers of tomfoolery to good use and fooled them all into thinking that they were still serving her when, unbeknownst to them, they were actually serving him after the fall. Kind of like rewiring your house so the ceiling fan's pull chain turns on the coffee maker and all that.
2) Cyric Won, Leira Died...Apparently.
Leira's clerics aren't just in denial; Leira really did pull off the ultimate fake death, Cyric fell for it, Lord Ao fell for it and handed Cyric a new God of Deception employee nametag...pretty much everyone fell for it. Mask was in on it too, of course; he and Leira might have gotten together and planned the whole thing from the beginning. "Okay...so after I say, 'Hey, Cyric! Let's go kill Leira!' enough times, he's going to go for it and storm his way into the Courts of Illusion, looking for you. When he gets there, you just stand there sneering at him, or maybe take a few practice swings at his head with the weapon of your choice. Then, when Cyric swings me at you, I'll turn my blade to putty and make it look like I'm cutting into you. You make it look like the sword blade's cleaving you wide open...like, make it look like a gaping wound with a geyser of god-ichor spraying out of it, something cool like that. Then you collapse and vanish inside your robe, like Darth Vader cutting down Obi-Wan Kenobi, and I'll assuringly tell Cyric, 'Hey, good job! You killed her sorry ass!' Then you leave your empty robe behind, I'll cover for you and we'll meet up later over pizza to discuss how we're going to finally remove this irritating wannabe from the board. How's that sound?"
So now Leira's in hiding, waiting for the right moment to pop out of a conveniently located fog bank and tear Cyric's head off, or trap him in a neverending cavalcade of nightmares, or whatever. Heck, she might have even had a hand in it when Mask betrayed Cyric, like Cyric was looking in the mirror one morning, brushing his teeth and waxing his Goatee of Evil +5, and Leira was there in the mirror, wearing a copy of his face and telling him, 'You know, Me, I really think it's a lovely morning to take a stroll around the City of the Dead and try to find Kelemvor's ghost, just to gloat for a while. Nothing could go wrong with a minor outing like that, right? Let's do it.'
Too bad Mask wasn't quite up to the task of handling his half of the deal. Anyway....
3) Leira Won, Cyric Retreated.
You know how Pee-wee Herman took that crazy spill off his bike, got back up and told the jeering onlookers, "I meant to do that"? That's pretty much how Cyric's throwdown with Leira went, except that the onlookers actually believed him. He showed up at the Courts of Illusion, he turned around and told his crowd of admirers, "Y'all stay here at the gates. I'ma gonna show Leira who's boss, Cyric Style!" and he confidently strutted inside with a chorus of cheers blossoming at his back. He slammed the front door behind him, and suddenly the walls of Leira's crazy, misty, ruby-studded castle started trembling and jumping and reeling with the clamors of a terrific battle inside. Thirty minutes later, the castle fell silent, and Cyric threw open the front door and stumbled back through the courtyard, bleeding and oozing all over, rasping through a swollen windpipe and a pair of fluid-filled lungs, with eleven broken ribs, the left half of his face peeled off his skull and his right forearm hanging off his elbow by a few strips of shredded skin and muscle, dragging Godsbane's newly chipped and ragged blade loudly across the glassy flagstones. So his followers asked, "Did you get her, Lord Cyric? Did you kill Leira?" and he collected himself stoically, drew himself to full height and feebly smiled. "Yes, my faithful. Leira is dead. And I killed her with these two hands!"
Meanwhile, Leira was still inside, relaxing in her white velvet chaise lounge chair without a scratch on her, wiping her claws clean and wondering if having Cyric beaten within an inch of his life by fourteen of her phantasmal duplicates was a bit of overkill.
Cyric sees no reason to let anyone know that Leira whooped him, of course; his pride is at stake. Leira sees no reason to speak up and break the subterfuge, either; she and her followers are not without their enemies, and if those enemies think that Leira is dead, then they're going to divert their attentions elsewhere. Which is exactly what she and her followers want. You can get away with more stuff when nobody's looking, after all.
4) Leira Won, Cyric Died and Leira Took His Place.
And here, we find the ultimate deception.
By that point, Mask was pretty well determined to see Cyric come to a nasty end, and who better to help him squash this socially repugnant upstart than his old friend Leira? Leira, though laughing at this child who would play at being a god, knew well the threat which Cyric posed; were Cyric to somehow attain godhood at the expense of many other gods, how many more mortal upstarts would ape his ascent and upset the divine power structure? Had Lord Ao lost his mind during--or before--the Time of Troubles?
So Mask and Leira launched their clever plan. Cyric would find Godsbane. Cyric, in his greed and self-importance, would wield Godsbane and, at Mask's goading, seek to slay the gods, with Mask there to aim Cyric at Bhaal--a god whom Mask had long viewed as pointless and grotesque--and land the killing stroke. Mask would make the kill look easy. Cyric would get the idea in his head that killing gods was easy for someone wielding Godsbane. Lord Ao would see Cyric's victory over Bhaal, and Lord Ao would foolishly hand unto Cyric his inheritance as the victor: Bhaal's godhood. Cyric would grow overconfident, cocky and certain of his victories. And in that overconfidence, Cyric would blindly bumble right into the trap which Mask and Leira had laid for him. And so Cyric did. Cyric marched forth into the Courts of Illusion, raised Godsbane and issued his challenge to Leira, only for Leira to draw back the curtain and reveal that Cyric stood not in Leira's home plane, but in his own. And there did Mask turn on Cyric and fail him in his time of need, and there did Leira put an utter end to him.
But who had aided Cyric's rise to power? The only way to find out would be to become Cyric, return to his seat of power and masquerade as Cyric before his supplicants. So Leira donned Cyric's sex and appearance, assumed his mannerisms, took up her ally Mask (as Godsbane) and called out to Lord Ao, beguiling Ao into granting her Cyric's portfolio under the guise of claiming the portfolio of Deception and Illusion, which, in truth, had been hers all along. She then left the Courts of Illusion behind and hastened to the City of the Dead, where she and Mask worked out another plan: a plan to hand that tiresome and dreary "God of the Dead" title off to someone more deserving...Cyric's old pal Kelemvor, perhaps. Mask produced Kelemvor's soul, and yet another grand deception was woven with the tale of Kelemvor's return and triumph over Cyric.
So why would Mask then turn against Leira? Perhaps that was Mask's plan all along, a more roundabout way of claiming Leira's portfolio. Or perhaps Leira, in absorbing Cyric's power, became too much like Cyric, right down to the black heart and the corrupt and self-absorbed personality which Mask so strongly resented. Was that Cyric breaking Godsbane after turning wise to Mask's ambitions? Or was it actually Leira breaking Godsbane in answer to Mask's objections over her unwelcome transfiguration, rightful objections howled in protest at seeing an old friend turn down a grim road?
We may never be entirely sure. Such can be expected when courting the Gods of Lies, eh?
That said, my fellow forumites...what do you think?
So I got to reading up on Leira (Ed Greenwood's Goddess of Deception, conceived all the way back during his own tabletop D&D games) before running Corella through the paces, paying paticular note to her demise (or alleged demise) at the hands of Scott Ciensen's misbegotten and overhyped Mary Sue and Kratos also-ran, Cyric. And a number of questions arose, questions which may be difficult to answer to satisfaction because the three stars of this play are two Gods of Falsehood (Mask and Leira) and one greedy little bastard who aspires to be such just because he's a shallow, one-dimensional powermonger and he simply can't be content with three or four portfolios (Cyric). And so, a rough timeline:
1) In the beginning, Mask and Leira are allies. With all of those Lawful Good gods and their pet Boy Scouts breathing down their necks, they pretty much needed to work together anyway. Having something in common made for good conversation between the two, I assume. Mask also maintains good relations with his mother Shar (Goddess of Night and sworn enemy of Mystra, Goddess of Magic), while Leira hangs out with Azuth, Mystra's favorite underling and weaver of many, many spells. Maybe Mask and Leira have some kind of Romeo-and-Juliet sort of relationship going on. They're a couple of really shady gods, so who knows?
2) At some point, Bane (the God of Strife), Bhaal (the God of Murder) and Myrkul (the God of the Dead) posse up and become the Dead Three. In 1358 DR, Bane and Myrkul send Bhaal out for pizza and beer (or something), and while he's gone, Bane and Myrkul get together and steal Ao's Tablets of Fate. This royally ticks Ao off and, in a feat of disproportionate retaliation, he decides that all the gods suck at doing their jobs and subsequently makes all of them (except for Helm, who's still on guard duty) go walkabout on Abeir-Toril. Enter the Time of Troubles/Avatar Crisis/Godswar/whatever.
3) A band of mortal adventurers gets together and goes adventuring; by name, they are Kelemvor Lyonsbane, Cyric, Adon of Sune and Midnight. Cyric kicks things off by bungling a simple magic item fetch and getting himself captured by frost giants. Kelemvor randomly shows up and busts Cyric out. Kelemvor and Cyric then hook up with Midnight and Adon, Bane (our favorite God of Strife and co-perpetrator of the Time of Troubles) takes a shine to Kelemvor for some reason and removes his lycanthropy, and the Awesome Foursome heads out to find the Tablets of Fate and return them to Lord Ao, apparently because Bane didn't have the balls to do it himself. Much adventure ensues.
3) For some reason, Mask gets a big idea and morphs into the god-slaying sword Godsbane (as later named by Cyric), conveniently located where some halfling called Sneakabout could find him. Sneakabout grabs Godsbane and continues on his merry way.
4) Cyric finds Sneakabout, says "Cool sword, dude!", kills Sneakabout and takes Godsbane.
5) Cyric tries to dominate Godsbane by force of will. As a result, Mask gets pissed off at Cyric.
6) Cyric decides to go after bigger XP by taking his shiny new sentient magic sword-with-a-god-inside and killing Bhaal with it. Bane and Torm wipe each other off the map at around the same time, and Midnight absorbs Mystra's power (since Helm had already killed Mystra over some stupid trespassing charge) and nukes Myrkul to ashes in a spectacular aerial battle over Waterdeep about two months later. Ao brings Torm back to life soonafter because he thinks Torm's the coolest dude, but Bane stays dead. But by that point, Bhaal and Bane have already put their aces in the hole in hope of future resurrection; Bhaal has a bunch of Bhaalspawn running around, and Bane has already fathered that half-devil son with the god-awful name that nobody can pronounce. Aside from that, the Dead Three are now, well, dead.
7) While they're all hanging out with Elminster atop Blackstaff Tower, Cyric draws Godsbane and lops Kelemvor's head off with a totally radical Sneak Attack, just for the hell of it. Out of spite for Cyric, Mask grabs Kelemvor's soul and tucks it away for safekeeping.
8) Ao gets his stupid tablets back, calls off the Time of Troubles and starts handing out godhoods. Ao, figuring that Midnight did a pretty good job of channeling Mystra's essence and obliterating Myrkul with it, makes Midnight the new Mystra. Ao then casts Polymorph Self Into Perfect Idiot and gives Cyric all the powers of the Dead Three. Because Scott Ciensen's a crappy author, that's why.
9) Mask sneaks off and cuts a deal with the new Mystra. Cyric must take a dive, so they bump their heads together and come up with a way to take him out.
10) Meanwhile, Cyric is reeling with his newfound godhood. He's now the God of Murder, Strife and the Dead. He gets even more cocky and decides that he's the ultimate multitasker, so he takes up Godsbane and goes after Leira. Soonafter, we have Cyric, God of Murder, Strife, the Dead and Deception and Illusion. Curiously enough, even though all of the clerics following Bane, Myrkul and Bhaal lost all of their divine powers--and their followers--right after those deities bit the dust, Leira's collective clergies in Simbral and Samarach are still operating, apparently no worse for wear.
11) Cyric finally takes off the dunce hat and realizes that Mask/Godsbane has been playing him all along, so Cyric gets piqued and snaps Godsbane in two, thus greatly weakening Mask. Cyric then tacks "God of Murder, Strife, the Dead, Deception, Illusion and Thieves and Intrigue" to his resumé in a bid to impress future employers and/or land that elusive workplace promotion.
12) Mask says "Well, screw you too!", sets Kelemvor free and gives Kelemvor a 44-ounce can of Whoop-Ass. Despite having the largely undeserved title of Greater Deity by this point (again, screw you, Scott Ciensen and Troy Denning!), Cyric completely wusses out. Kelemvor forcibly evicts Cyric from the City of the Dead and, with Ao and Jergal giving him the thumbs up, becomes the new God of the Dead.
13) Mask then follows through by sending Kezef the Big, Ferocious, Cyric-Killing God-Dog to finish Cyric off, but Cyric somehow turns Kezef against Mask. Kezef rages out and bites off Mask's arm/leg/generic appendage, which makes Mask an even bigger wimp. Cyric still sucks, and now we're just waiting for Cyric to recover his gall and kill Mystra so he can get super-glued to the Supreme Throne for a millenium or two.
...and the rest is history.
But what really happened?
Cyric killed off Bhaal, Bhaal became a dead god and Bhaal's cults either petered out of existence or stuck around until Cyric became the God of Murder so they could convert to that church instead. Torm killed off Bane, Bane became a dead god and Bane's cults either petered out of existence or stuck around until Alphabet Xvim attained godhood and took Dad's Strife portfolio back from Cyric so they could form the Church of Whateverthehell Xvim, keeping the porch light on for Bane until Bane could come ripping out of Xvim's chest Alien-style and reclaim his throne. The same thing happened with Myrkul and his death cults; Midnight nuked Myrkul to smithereens, Myrkul's essence got trapped inside the Crown of Horns and his followers either died off or hooked up with Cyric's clergy after Myrkul stopped answering their calls.
But what about Leira's faithful? Well, she is (was?) the Goddess of Deception, and her followers are compulsive liars and deceivers, every last one of them (except when chatting with each other...maybe). If Leira's well and truly dead, then the Leirans are doing a wonderful job of bluffing and covering for her. If she's alive, well, the Leirans are doing a wonderful job of hiding that too. No one's really sure what Leira's status is; Lord Ao himself could be in the dark here. So the way I (and assorted people on the Candlekeep forums) see it, this could mean that the Super-Mysterious Leira-Cyric Title Bout of 1358 came to any one of four different possible outcomes:
1) Cyric Won, Leira Died.
At the time of the battle, Cyric was out of his depth. Bhaal had his sneaky little assassins, but he was pretty much an in-your-face kind of deity...not so hard to kill when you have a very sharp god-sword in your hand. Killing Sneakabout may have demanded keen eyes and ears, but Sneakabout was still no God of Deception. So Mask swallowed his resentment just long enough to help Cyric strike down Leira by getting Cyric past Leira's illusions, ruses, misdirections, Hail Mary passes and other deceitful gambits; Mask himself knows a thing or two about deception, after all.
So why would Mask betray Leira on behalf of some wet-behind-the-ears upstart? Well, maybe Mask was just being evil for the sake of being evil. Maybe Shar had been leaning on him, saying, "If you don't get rid of that Azuth-loving bitch right bloody now, I'm disowning you and barring you from all future family reunions!" Or maybe Mask secretly coveted Leira's portfolio, and he figured that he could help Cyric kill Leira, Cyric would take Leira's portfolio, then Mask could kill Cyric, take his portfolio and become the new God of Thieves, Intrigue, Deception and Illusion. Whether Mask intended to keep the Strife, Murder and The Dead portfolios--or hand them off to some other god--is anyone's guess, but Mask doesn't strike me as being the bloodthirsty, kill-crazy sort.
As for Leira's clerics (and how and why they apparently retained their power after Leira's demise), either they're really good at bluffing or Cyric put Leira's powers of tomfoolery to good use and fooled them all into thinking that they were still serving her when, unbeknownst to them, they were actually serving him after the fall. Kind of like rewiring your house so the ceiling fan's pull chain turns on the coffee maker and all that.
2) Cyric Won, Leira Died...Apparently.
Leira's clerics aren't just in denial; Leira really did pull off the ultimate fake death, Cyric fell for it, Lord Ao fell for it and handed Cyric a new God of Deception employee nametag...pretty much everyone fell for it. Mask was in on it too, of course; he and Leira might have gotten together and planned the whole thing from the beginning. "Okay...so after I say, 'Hey, Cyric! Let's go kill Leira!' enough times, he's going to go for it and storm his way into the Courts of Illusion, looking for you. When he gets there, you just stand there sneering at him, or maybe take a few practice swings at his head with the weapon of your choice. Then, when Cyric swings me at you, I'll turn my blade to putty and make it look like I'm cutting into you. You make it look like the sword blade's cleaving you wide open...like, make it look like a gaping wound with a geyser of god-ichor spraying out of it, something cool like that. Then you collapse and vanish inside your robe, like Darth Vader cutting down Obi-Wan Kenobi, and I'll assuringly tell Cyric, 'Hey, good job! You killed her sorry ass!' Then you leave your empty robe behind, I'll cover for you and we'll meet up later over pizza to discuss how we're going to finally remove this irritating wannabe from the board. How's that sound?"
So now Leira's in hiding, waiting for the right moment to pop out of a conveniently located fog bank and tear Cyric's head off, or trap him in a neverending cavalcade of nightmares, or whatever. Heck, she might have even had a hand in it when Mask betrayed Cyric, like Cyric was looking in the mirror one morning, brushing his teeth and waxing his Goatee of Evil +5, and Leira was there in the mirror, wearing a copy of his face and telling him, 'You know, Me, I really think it's a lovely morning to take a stroll around the City of the Dead and try to find Kelemvor's ghost, just to gloat for a while. Nothing could go wrong with a minor outing like that, right? Let's do it.'
Too bad Mask wasn't quite up to the task of handling his half of the deal. Anyway....
3) Leira Won, Cyric Retreated.
You know how Pee-wee Herman took that crazy spill off his bike, got back up and told the jeering onlookers, "I meant to do that"? That's pretty much how Cyric's throwdown with Leira went, except that the onlookers actually believed him. He showed up at the Courts of Illusion, he turned around and told his crowd of admirers, "Y'all stay here at the gates. I'ma gonna show Leira who's boss, Cyric Style!" and he confidently strutted inside with a chorus of cheers blossoming at his back. He slammed the front door behind him, and suddenly the walls of Leira's crazy, misty, ruby-studded castle started trembling and jumping and reeling with the clamors of a terrific battle inside. Thirty minutes later, the castle fell silent, and Cyric threw open the front door and stumbled back through the courtyard, bleeding and oozing all over, rasping through a swollen windpipe and a pair of fluid-filled lungs, with eleven broken ribs, the left half of his face peeled off his skull and his right forearm hanging off his elbow by a few strips of shredded skin and muscle, dragging Godsbane's newly chipped and ragged blade loudly across the glassy flagstones. So his followers asked, "Did you get her, Lord Cyric? Did you kill Leira?" and he collected himself stoically, drew himself to full height and feebly smiled. "Yes, my faithful. Leira is dead. And I killed her with these two hands!"
Meanwhile, Leira was still inside, relaxing in her white velvet chaise lounge chair without a scratch on her, wiping her claws clean and wondering if having Cyric beaten within an inch of his life by fourteen of her phantasmal duplicates was a bit of overkill.
Cyric sees no reason to let anyone know that Leira whooped him, of course; his pride is at stake. Leira sees no reason to speak up and break the subterfuge, either; she and her followers are not without their enemies, and if those enemies think that Leira is dead, then they're going to divert their attentions elsewhere. Which is exactly what she and her followers want. You can get away with more stuff when nobody's looking, after all.
4) Leira Won, Cyric Died and Leira Took His Place.
And here, we find the ultimate deception.
By that point, Mask was pretty well determined to see Cyric come to a nasty end, and who better to help him squash this socially repugnant upstart than his old friend Leira? Leira, though laughing at this child who would play at being a god, knew well the threat which Cyric posed; were Cyric to somehow attain godhood at the expense of many other gods, how many more mortal upstarts would ape his ascent and upset the divine power structure? Had Lord Ao lost his mind during--or before--the Time of Troubles?
So Mask and Leira launched their clever plan. Cyric would find Godsbane. Cyric, in his greed and self-importance, would wield Godsbane and, at Mask's goading, seek to slay the gods, with Mask there to aim Cyric at Bhaal--a god whom Mask had long viewed as pointless and grotesque--and land the killing stroke. Mask would make the kill look easy. Cyric would get the idea in his head that killing gods was easy for someone wielding Godsbane. Lord Ao would see Cyric's victory over Bhaal, and Lord Ao would foolishly hand unto Cyric his inheritance as the victor: Bhaal's godhood. Cyric would grow overconfident, cocky and certain of his victories. And in that overconfidence, Cyric would blindly bumble right into the trap which Mask and Leira had laid for him. And so Cyric did. Cyric marched forth into the Courts of Illusion, raised Godsbane and issued his challenge to Leira, only for Leira to draw back the curtain and reveal that Cyric stood not in Leira's home plane, but in his own. And there did Mask turn on Cyric and fail him in his time of need, and there did Leira put an utter end to him.
But who had aided Cyric's rise to power? The only way to find out would be to become Cyric, return to his seat of power and masquerade as Cyric before his supplicants. So Leira donned Cyric's sex and appearance, assumed his mannerisms, took up her ally Mask (as Godsbane) and called out to Lord Ao, beguiling Ao into granting her Cyric's portfolio under the guise of claiming the portfolio of Deception and Illusion, which, in truth, had been hers all along. She then left the Courts of Illusion behind and hastened to the City of the Dead, where she and Mask worked out another plan: a plan to hand that tiresome and dreary "God of the Dead" title off to someone more deserving...Cyric's old pal Kelemvor, perhaps. Mask produced Kelemvor's soul, and yet another grand deception was woven with the tale of Kelemvor's return and triumph over Cyric.
So why would Mask then turn against Leira? Perhaps that was Mask's plan all along, a more roundabout way of claiming Leira's portfolio. Or perhaps Leira, in absorbing Cyric's power, became too much like Cyric, right down to the black heart and the corrupt and self-absorbed personality which Mask so strongly resented. Was that Cyric breaking Godsbane after turning wise to Mask's ambitions? Or was it actually Leira breaking Godsbane in answer to Mask's objections over her unwelcome transfiguration, rightful objections howled in protest at seeing an old friend turn down a grim road?
We may never be entirely sure. Such can be expected when courting the Gods of Lies, eh?
That said, my fellow forumites...what do you think?
Corella d'Margo, arch-liar
Wyren Caul-of-Amber, alchemist
Tirah Het-Nanu, courtesan
Wyren Caul-of-Amber, alchemist
Tirah Het-Nanu, courtesan
