Discord
Changelog
This is a suggestion for (assuming it doesn't already exist!) a monastery of the Long Death to be added to Thay at the builders convienience as well as a second suggestion to make them a joinable faction. By sheer coincidence, I've recently made a monk of the Long Death! Shock :D.
What's the logic behind adding this?
Well, the Long Death were founded, and are still strongest in, Thay. This can be seen from reading the in game description of the gloves of the long death, or consulting the (frustratingly limited) information about them from the sourcebook Players Guide To Faerun. They only have one monestary/fortress which is public knowledge, and that's located somewhere in the Silver Marches. It's a recurring theme that people seem to stumble upon these monasteries (fatally) by accident a lot, so presumably, if Thay is their birthplace and seat of power, there's at least one monastery hidden in there somewhere.
Why don't you make this faction yourself?
Laziness :P. If it's a canon faction, then it most likely has access to resources I'll probably never aquire. Like triple mansion sized underground doom fortresses complete with toilet facilities.
What do we know about Long Death monks?
Not alot. Here's most of what I know (or most of what I can get down 10 minutes before work :D)
These monks seek for the secrets of life by studying death. It is the condition of being dead that concerns them most, and not what lies beyond: The afterlife holds little interest for them. Their laboratories are full of decaying, dying, and dead animal and plant specimens that they study with detached interest; they frequently purchase rare specimens that they cannot obtain easily themselves from adventurers and merchants. But such studies are only part of the monks' daily life: They seek to understand death as it pertains especially to intelligent living beings.
To this end, they exhume corpses from crypts and graveyards, and then they transport the corpses to their monastery. There they examine the cadavers in their well-stocked laboratory and observe them as they decompose. They also -- and it is for this that they are most reviled and feared -- purchase living slaves and put them to death, slowly, recording their observations and asking the perishing slaves questions about their fatal experience. Slaves are hard to come by in the Silver Marches, however, because Lady Alustriel and her confederations condemn the practice. The order has been obliged to obtain its living specimens by other means, such as abducting them from outlying farmsteads and poorly-defended hamlets in the dead of night. The monks suffer no moral qualms about these deeds: Death is the most natural thing in the world, from their perspective, and to expire in service to its principle is the most profoundly holy experience any living being can hope to enjoy. It is for this reason that the monks themselves do not fear death, and while they may study the dead, they do not seek that state themselves.
Most of the order's members are either scholars who share mutual fascination with and worship of death and dying, or clergy who worship one of the deities concerned with death. Some of the monks consider themselves to be nothing less than visionaries whose work will pave the way for a better future for all Faerun: When death is truly understood, it can be harnessed and used as a tool for the betterment of all, or so they rationalize to themselves. Others who take the Vows of Death could not possibly care less about anything other than increasing their personal measure of understanding about their chosen subject.
Though fearful of those who do not understand them and who might seek to thwart their studies, they can be civil hosts if approached by learned folk who offer to share knowledge or wisdom. Their narrow vision and single-mindedness makes them dull hosts, however, and the rigid structure of their society seems quite stifling to outsiders.
Got to dash anyway! More info comming soon.
Alright, from the Players Guide to Faerun we have this; "The organisation (motld) is strongest in Thay", "Candidates must be inducted into the monks of the long death via a secret ceremony consisting of various morbid and hideous acts designed to test their resolve." They gain an ability called "Macabre Shroud" which means "Monks of the long death are disturbing and even frightening to most people so those who see them tend to forget them as quickly as possible" resulting in any and all information about them being incredibly difficult to discover (actual ability gives +1 dc to all gather knowledge checks for each monk of the long death level).
Ex-monks of the long death: Any monk who betrays the secrets of the order, or even attempts to leave the organisation immediately becomes the target of assassins. These assassins begin with a level equal to the monks level (A single same level, or several lower levels) but each failed attempt increases the level of the assassins by 1. If by some miracle a monk survives an attempt with an assassin or group 5 levels higher than himself, the monks of the long death stop wasting their resources on him. The assassins are most often monks of the long death themselves.
And this is more or less all the info avaliable on them (to my knowledge). Personally, I think they would be an excellent addition to the module. They're very big in the slave trade, especially rare and exotic specemins (perhaps some sort of slaver that gives better prices on rarer fare could be located in their monastery?), feared and reviled for their hobbies and just generally a powerful organisation to run into trouble with. It could be nice to have such a bizzare and unique group to clash/ally with the currently established ones such as the assassins guild, vampire covens, red wizards and of course, normal and unaffiliated players.
I'm pretty bias though :P
What's the logic behind adding this?
Well, the Long Death were founded, and are still strongest in, Thay. This can be seen from reading the in game description of the gloves of the long death, or consulting the (frustratingly limited) information about them from the sourcebook Players Guide To Faerun. They only have one monestary/fortress which is public knowledge, and that's located somewhere in the Silver Marches. It's a recurring theme that people seem to stumble upon these monasteries (fatally) by accident a lot, so presumably, if Thay is their birthplace and seat of power, there's at least one monastery hidden in there somewhere.
Why don't you make this faction yourself?
Laziness :P. If it's a canon faction, then it most likely has access to resources I'll probably never aquire. Like triple mansion sized underground doom fortresses complete with toilet facilities.
What do we know about Long Death monks?
Not alot. Here's most of what I know (or most of what I can get down 10 minutes before work :D)
These monks seek for the secrets of life by studying death. It is the condition of being dead that concerns them most, and not what lies beyond: The afterlife holds little interest for them. Their laboratories are full of decaying, dying, and dead animal and plant specimens that they study with detached interest; they frequently purchase rare specimens that they cannot obtain easily themselves from adventurers and merchants. But such studies are only part of the monks' daily life: They seek to understand death as it pertains especially to intelligent living beings.
To this end, they exhume corpses from crypts and graveyards, and then they transport the corpses to their monastery. There they examine the cadavers in their well-stocked laboratory and observe them as they decompose. They also -- and it is for this that they are most reviled and feared -- purchase living slaves and put them to death, slowly, recording their observations and asking the perishing slaves questions about their fatal experience. Slaves are hard to come by in the Silver Marches, however, because Lady Alustriel and her confederations condemn the practice. The order has been obliged to obtain its living specimens by other means, such as abducting them from outlying farmsteads and poorly-defended hamlets in the dead of night. The monks suffer no moral qualms about these deeds: Death is the most natural thing in the world, from their perspective, and to expire in service to its principle is the most profoundly holy experience any living being can hope to enjoy. It is for this reason that the monks themselves do not fear death, and while they may study the dead, they do not seek that state themselves.
Most of the order's members are either scholars who share mutual fascination with and worship of death and dying, or clergy who worship one of the deities concerned with death. Some of the monks consider themselves to be nothing less than visionaries whose work will pave the way for a better future for all Faerun: When death is truly understood, it can be harnessed and used as a tool for the betterment of all, or so they rationalize to themselves. Others who take the Vows of Death could not possibly care less about anything other than increasing their personal measure of understanding about their chosen subject.
Though fearful of those who do not understand them and who might seek to thwart their studies, they can be civil hosts if approached by learned folk who offer to share knowledge or wisdom. Their narrow vision and single-mindedness makes them dull hosts, however, and the rigid structure of their society seems quite stifling to outsiders.
Got to dash anyway! More info comming soon.
Alright, from the Players Guide to Faerun we have this; "The organisation (motld) is strongest in Thay", "Candidates must be inducted into the monks of the long death via a secret ceremony consisting of various morbid and hideous acts designed to test their resolve." They gain an ability called "Macabre Shroud" which means "Monks of the long death are disturbing and even frightening to most people so those who see them tend to forget them as quickly as possible" resulting in any and all information about them being incredibly difficult to discover (actual ability gives +1 dc to all gather knowledge checks for each monk of the long death level).
Ex-monks of the long death: Any monk who betrays the secrets of the order, or even attempts to leave the organisation immediately becomes the target of assassins. These assassins begin with a level equal to the monks level (A single same level, or several lower levels) but each failed attempt increases the level of the assassins by 1. If by some miracle a monk survives an attempt with an assassin or group 5 levels higher than himself, the monks of the long death stop wasting their resources on him. The assassins are most often monks of the long death themselves.
And this is more or less all the info avaliable on them (to my knowledge). Personally, I think they would be an excellent addition to the module. They're very big in the slave trade, especially rare and exotic specemins (perhaps some sort of slaver that gives better prices on rarer fare could be located in their monastery?), feared and reviled for their hobbies and just generally a powerful organisation to run into trouble with. It could be nice to have such a bizzare and unique group to clash/ally with the currently established ones such as the assassins guild, vampire covens, red wizards and of course, normal and unaffiliated players.
I'm pretty bias though :P
![[Image: rt_monkshighcrypt_med.jpg]](http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/rt_monkshighcrypt_med.jpg)
