Okay, well here's my fiend that was rejected, here for your

entertainment. The Kargatane said that he was tied too much to

DL-history, and that those who were not DL fans would not appreciate

him very much. In addition, having King Lorac's dreamself in the

demi-plane comes close to contradicting DL canon (so they said.)

I'd appreciate any comments, and if people are interested, I'll

flesh ehim out beyond this proposal and submit him to the netbooks.

History:

The story of Iathanos begins on Krynn, when a dragonorb took control of a

prideful king and corrupted his lands. After the dragonorb was defeated,

the elven king lapsed into a coma from which he never awoke. In this state,

the king was discovered by the Nightmare Court, whose interests were all

piqued by this bizarre story of love, hate, pride, betrayal and guilt. They

forced Lorac to relive the events over and over again in his nightmares,

drawing in his dream-self to be a dreamseed in the Nightmare Lands. Lorac's

dreams were so powerful and so nourishing to them that they grew worried and

restless as his health declined.

The Nightmare Court examined his dreams for a solution, and they found the

dragonorb. They believed the orb, combined with their powers, could keep

Lorac their prisoner forever. Hoping to draw the dragonorb into the

dreamscape, the Nightmare Court boosted his shattered confidence one last

time, and put all they had into altering Lorac's spellcasting powers, that

he might reach into his homeworld and draw out the dragonorb to join him in

a designer hell of his own making.

Something went horribly wrong. Instead of _summoning_ a dragonorb, they

_created_ one based on Lorac's twisted perceptions of what the orb was.

Lorac's tortured soul ascribed far more power and far more malice to the orb

than it actually had, creating a being that reflected his every fear.
Worse, part of the spell had been successful: Lorac's dreamself was now

immortal, and had enough reality to leave the Nightmare Lands and take the

biggest nightmare with him....

Current Sketch:

First of all, Iathanos is _not_ a demon trapped in a crystal ball, waiting

to get free. Iathanos _is_ the crystal ball. He is a sphere of rose

colored glass 4" in diameter (much smaller than the original dragonorb) and

is permanently fastened to a silver stand, the whole being about 5" tall.

Iathanos's reality wrinkle is slightly under a mile in diameter, and this is

unlikely to change: performing power rituals requires mortal assistants,

and Iathanos has found this limitation prohibitive.

Lorac can walk through the dreams of any sleeper within the reality

wrinkle, and he does what he can to thwart Iathanos. Lorac is Iathanos's

phylactery; to fully destroy Iathanos, the orb must be shattered, and then

the PC's must enter the dreamworld and destroy Lorac, or Iathanos will be

reborn from his nightmares.

Iathanos's powers and personality all stem from the perceptions of Lorac

after his torture at the hands of the Nightmare Court. By the end of his

ordeal, Lorac believed that the orb could toy with landscapes and nature,

create dragon-men, dominate people from a distance, and that it was devoted

to detroying elves. This is all now true, within certain limits.

Adventure:

Iathanos has arrived near an elven community (best set in Darkon or near

Sithicus) and has been stirring up feelings of prejudice. Those who respond

to his urgings become the breeding ground for his cult (most likely yuan-ti,

with other options for DM's who want more or less fantasy creatures). This

has caused a number of disappearances as the slow twisting of their features

leads to hiding from the community. These disappearances are blamed on the
elves, and PC's will be asked to investigate. Those who hate the elves the

most are the ones who disappear, leading to more accusations, more bigotry,

and more disappearances, in a vicous cycle.

A fleeing ex-cultist finds the party and gives them a little info on the

cult. Pregnant and panicked, she goes into labor while talking to the PCs.

With assistance, she will live through the labor before dying from poison or

the blood oath (Iathanos will not kill her using the blood oath while she is

carrying the child). She gives birth to a baby naga, plus one pit viper for

each PC. The naga grows very quickly, but does not have all the standard

powers at first. In a predetermined number of rounds, cultists arrive--to

take the beast away or avenge it.

Eventually, the PC's confront the cult in their lair, which is a dungeon

formed by Iathanos. The deeper they go, the more the dungeon reflects the

PC's own nightmares. Parts of the dungeon change with the thoughts of the

PC's, making it difficult to map. Painful memories and stacked illusions

allow this "dungeon" to be tailored to the party. Finally, there is a very

good chance that the PC's will defeat the cultists and the naga leader,

exposing the evil nature of the local prejudice, only to take the real

villain as part of the treasure....

L. Campbell

"All of us are born with a set of instinctive fears--of falling, of the

dark, of lobsters, of falling on lobsters in the dark, or speaking before a

Rotary Club, and of the words "Some Assembly Required." --Dave Barry