Kech Ghaalrac

Commander Utton is dead. Hostile forces are inside the walls. Orcs. Goblins. Some beast with many eyes. Someone is outside my door, killing my guards, and I think his sword is laughing. If this is the last message you receive, the Gathering Stone is lost. —Tolan Torralyn d’Sivis

It has been two days since the Sentinel Tower received this communication from the Deneith fortress in Darguun, which is also known as the Gathering Stone. The region around the place is blanketed with a powerful effect that disrupts scrying and teleportation, so no one outside that effect yet knows the truth of the situation.

The speed of the assault, the mention of orcs, the mystical wards . . . these parts of the message don’t suggest any known force in the region. As for the known forces: Lhesh Haruuc Shaarat’kor welcomed the relationship with Deneith, and the baron of the house is certain this isn’t his work. And the Kech Shaarat have rattled sabers for the last few years, but no one reports that they are mobilizing an army in the region.

The truth of the matter is that the goblins that have claimed the Gathering Stone call themselves the Kech Ghaalrac. They are more than just another Dhakaani clan; they are an ancient legend made manifest. If left unchecked, they could destabilize the entire region.

Deneith wants its fortress back, and many people would like to know more about those who took it. After the player characters figure out who has possession of the fortress, will they fight the Kech Ghaalrac? Can they contain the threat without resorting to violence?

The Kech Ghaalrac clan has taken the greatest traditions of its people, blended them together, and improved upon them. Its soldiers are disciplined and hardened from generations of battling aberrants in the depths. Its duur’kala (dirge singer) bards have devised new techniques for inspiring troops and instilling terror in foes. Druids provide elemental fire support, and goblin assassins sally forth to slay enemy leaders before a battle is even joined.

The Dhakaani clans have always excelled at metallurgy and weaponsmithing; not even House Cannith can match their techniques. The members of Kech Ghaalrac have continued to improve upon these traditions, and even the rank-and-file Kech Ghaalrac soldiers are equipped with the equivalent of adamantine arms and armor. But such items are the least of their creations. Working together, the Kech Ghaalrac smiths, bards, and druids can create artifacts. These objects cannot be mass produced; each one is unique and requires rare components to create—the blood of a daelkyr, slivers of Khyber dragonshards imbued with a demon’s essence, and the like. So the numbers of such artifacts are limited, but over the course of thousands of years Kech Ghaalrac clan members have produced many amazing devices. The ward that shields the Gathering Stone from scrying or teleportation is the product of one such artifact, and the clan has many other tools waiting to be deployed.

The Kech Ghaalrac tribe has another advantage that is far stranger. The Gatekeeper druids who joined the Kech Ghaalrac knew the secret of breeding horrid animals by blending dire beast and dragon. Over thousands of years, they have seized many symbionts from the daelkyr and combined their breeding techniques with daelkyr fleshshaping. This effort has produced a host of strange and terrifying results. The clan uses symbionts of its own, ranging from fleshy constructs like those of the daelkyr to weapons that thirst for blood and secrete acid or venom on command. Clan members have crafted symbionts that interface directly with the nervous system of the user, granting enhanced strength, speed, or regenerative powers. They have even developed a form of resurrection, in which a new body is grown for a hero and memories transferred into it after death.

In addition to these tools, the druids are employing their magebreeding techniques on their own soldiers. The Kech Ghaalrac heroes are physically far more imposing than their normal kin. Although still recognizable as members of their original species, these champions have tough, armored skin with bony protrusions. They heal with remarkable speed, and they have vicious fangs that secrete acidic bile. A single Kech Ghaalrac bugbear is a match for a host of Brelish warriors.

As if this weren’t enough, the Kech Ghaalrac clan has one more form of living weapon in its arsenal: bound aberrants. In the long struggle with the daelkyr, the Kech Ghaalrac developed tools and techniques to dominate aberrants, and the clan’s forces often include packs of enslaved beholders.

Combining exceptional skill with peerless tools, the Kech Ghaalrac is one of the most powerful fighting forces in Khorvaire. The clan has yet one more advantage: familiarity with the paths of Khyber. The world within Eberron is more than just a system of caves. Tied to the Elemental Chaos, it is a place of raw magic. Natural laws don’t always apply in Khyber, and those who know its paths can cross great distances on the surface world in a bizarrely short time. If the Kech Ghaalrac begins aggressive action, knowledge of Khyber can allow its forces to move swiftly, strike by surprise, and flee quickly. Anyone who doesn’t know Khyber at least as well as the clan does will have a difficult and dangerous time pursuing the Kech Ghaalrac through the depths.

The champions who founded the Kech Ghaalrac are long dead, but the greatest heroes of the modern clan have assumed the names and the trappings of the clan’s founders. Although this practice bears a surface resemblance to the customs of the Valenar, the name taking is an honor granted to a single exceptional warrior as opposed to an act carried out by every member of the clan.

When a hero is granted an ancient name, that hero also takes up the arms and armor of the champion. In the Ghaal’dar tribes, doing so creates an illusion that the heroes themselves have returned— because there stands mighty Korrga with blood dripping from Laar’shaarat, his laughing sword! Since many Darguuls know these heroes from story, the powerful impact that this naming practice has is similar to King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table returning to reestablish Camelot. A few of these heroes are described below.

Khaas

The latest individual to bear the name of Khaas is the hobgoblin warlord who commanded his people to victory over Dyrrn, and who has now seized the Gathering Stone and aspires to be the leader of all goblinkind. Khaas wears Ur’Taash and wields a spiked chain that sings as he spins it. Khaas is furious that the empire of his people has fallen so low, with human cities now standing on the ruins of proud Dhakaan, and he blames clans such as the Kech Shaarat for standing by and letting things come to this. He truly wants what’s best for his people, and he believes that he is the only one who knows what that is. He feels that if Tuura Dhakaan and Lhesh Haruuc know what’s good for them, they will fall in line and let him rebuild the empire. The leader of the Kech Ghaalrac inspires tremendous loyalty in his troops, something now enhanced by the First Crown. Even if the other goblin leaders resist him, many of their followers will be won to his banner by the strength of Khaas’s charisma and the influence of Ur’Taash.

Torrm

The first Torrm was the high druid of the Gatekeepers, and her family preserves the old traditions in the Shadow Marches today. Torrm’s legendary weapon is a staff studded with Khyber shards, channeling the power of spirits she has bound. The current Torrm wields this weapon, plus wears armor made from the hide of a beholder.

The practices of the Kech Ghaalrac druids have drifted from those observed in the Marches, and the Marcher druids will be dubious about the use of living weapons and bound aberrants. These changes have come about due to the latest Torrm and her people, who have been fighting the daelkyr directly, whereas the present-day Gatekeepers have chosen only to maintain crumbling seals. When it comes to a wider war, Torrm intends to call on the Marches to ally with Khaas. If the player characters don’t interfere, she might convince her clan mates to join his cause.

Korrga

The mightiest champion of the Kech Ghaalrac forces, Korrga is a bugbear barbarian who never flees from battle until the last enemy has fallen. The current Korrga was magebred to be all but indestructible. He has astonishing regenerative powers, such that he can recover from almost any injury within seconds. There is surely a form of damage that he cannot heal, but the characters need to discover that truth through trial and error. He is in the vanguard of any attack, his living greatsword laughing as it drinks the blood of Korrga’s foes.

Khesh

A master of assassins, the goblin named Khesh wears a cloak of shadows and never speaks unless she must. It’s said that she can pass from one shadow to another, and that she can steal a person’s secrets just by looking at him or her. Though Khesh is less outgoing than the Kech Ghaalrac leader, she believes in Khaas’s mission to restore the empire and is prepared to kill anyone who gets in the way, whether that’s Lhesh Haruuc or King Boranel. She will do her best to convince the current Khesh’dar to abandon its neutral stance and join with Khaas as the group’s ancestors did.

Based on the campaign’s needs, the Kech Ghaalrac clan can be a threat for characters in the paragon or epic tier. To make the clan more powerful, scale up the artifacts and bound aberrants, and emphasize that they are magebred and possess unnatural physical prowess. The characters’ exposure to the Kech Ghaalrac might be confined to a single adventure— such as reclaiming the Gathering Stone—or it could lead to an entire campaign arc as Khaas brings Darguun, Droaam, and the Shadow Marches together in an effort to drive humanity from Khorvaire and restore the Age of Monsters.

Consider the following possibilities.

• House Deneith wants to know what’s going on in and around the Gathering Stone. If information about the attack has leaked out, then groups such as the Trust, the King’s Citadel, and House Phiarlan will also want to learn what they can. Are any Deneith heirs still alive inside the fortress? What can the characters learn about the Kech Ghaalrac and its goals? Will the adventurers cooperate with other foes of the goblins, or might representatives from other nations get in their way?
• Many of the major cities of the Five Nations are built on top of Dhakaani ruins. While exploring such ruins, the characters encounter a Kech Ghaalrac strike force sent to recover an artifact or to activate an eldritch machine hidden in the ruins— a precursor to war. This is a way for characters to encounter a party of these powerful goblins with no connection to a larger plot.
• Khaas demands that all goblins swear loyalty to him. Swayed by both the reputation of the Kech Ghaalrac and the power of Ur’Taash, many tribes do so. Lhesh Haruuc, the Kech Volaar, and the Kech Shaarat are all holding out, but they are losing followers every day. If Khaas unites the goblin empire, the next step would be seeking new realms to conquer. Breland, Valenar, and Zilargo are all likely targets; where would he go first? Might the Zil choose to ally with the new emperor to protect themselves from his wrath? In addition to the combat possibilities, the characters could become involved with thwarting the Kech Ghaalrac’s diplomatic efforts in Droaam and the Shadow Marches.
• Tuura Dhakaan of the Kech Volaar believes that the Kech Ghaalrac isn’t what it claims to be. Because this clan fought Dyrrn the Corruptor for thousands of years, she believes that it has been subverted by the daelkyr—and that Khaas is simply building an empire on Dyrrn’s behalf. Most of the Kech Ghaalrac forces are still in Khyber; do they include armies of dolgaunts and dolgrims? If this is true, it must be because of the coercive power of what Khaas claims to be the First Crown—it’s not just Khaas’s reputation that’s winning followers, it’s dark magic. The crown must be destroyed if Khaas is to be stopped.