1. Characters

Korel

Raider of the Gray Pearl
NPC (Spy)
Stormreach in Xen'drik

A band of daring sahuagin (MM 217) routinely makes raids against coastal travelers and groups leaving or entering Stormreach. A four-armed mutant leader and his three underlings each wear a heavy silver collar studded with a large silver-gray pearl, and victims of their attacks have dubbed this group the Raiders of the Gray Pearl.

These sahuagin use surprisingly cunning tactics. Other sahuagin typically wade into melee, but the Raiders attack by throwing nets from hiding. Once a target is entangled, the four-armed leader controls the net’s trailing rope while his three raiders surround the victim. Two flank and attack, while the third uses the aid another action to assist his comrades. The raiders focus on killing or disabling a single target before turning their attention to another.

Local adventurers have not yet been able to catch the Raiders of the Gray Pearl, and their hidden lair undoubtedly holds a great deal of treasure by now.

Though no one in Stormreach yet suspects it, the Raiders of the Gray Pearl are minions of a malenti spy. The malenti, who looks exactly like a female aquatic elf, uses the sahuagin’s attacks as a diversion. While Stormreach stays on alert for the raiding band, the Guard takes no notice of the pale elf who slips into town at night and disappears before daybreak.

Korel, the malenti spy, breaks into the homes and offices of shippers, smugglers, and members of House Lyrandar. She learns all she can about planned shipping routes and cargo so that she can coordinate her peoples’ attacks on those who sail through Shargon’s Teeth.

Maw of the Devourer

One of the more complicated and delicate matters for many Stormreachers involves their city’s ongoing relations with the sahuagin that literally surround their coastal home. Most residents (especially those who live in the Harbor district or make a living from the sea) know of House Lyrandar’s tenuous treaty with the sahuagin of Shargon’s Teeth. Those same residents mistakenly assume that occasional attacks involving sahuagin are signs that the relationship is tenuous. In fact, the agreement between the city (via House Lyrandar) and the sahuagin lords remains strong. The true source of the attacks is a rogue element within the sahuagin themselves.

The sahuagin are exclusive devotees of the Devourer. Only a rare few choose to offer their worship to any other deity. However, within the sahuagin Devourer religion a massive sectarian rift has opened, one that threatens not only the local sahuagin population, but also the land-dwelling residents of Stormreach. The figure at the center of this divide is a messianic figure named K’shegla, an almost insanely fervent believer in the darker side of Devourer belief. According to K’shegla and his followers, the priest Khalaash at Shargon’s Talon is blaspheming his faith and shaming his people by sharing the sahuagin faith with the land-dwellers. To them, his ongoing treaty is not only cowardly, but also heretical.

One of the most ancient practices of the sahuagin religion involves the ritual slaughter and consumption of one’s enemies. Khalaash has restricted this practice and kept it hidden from the surfacedwellers. K’shegla once served with Khalaash, but after a long rivalry, K’shegla slaughtered one of the human priests and consumed his flesh, transforming himself into a malenti and launching his career as a sahuagin messiah.

A devoted admirer of prophecy, K’shegla believes that he is the savior warlord spoken of in ancient sahuagin lore. The prophecy tells of a “smoothskin” (malenti) who will rise to lead his people into an age of victory and supremacy over the land-walkers. Part of the prophecy speaks of this messiah figure besting a great beast of the sea. The savior will devour the beast’s essence and transform into the mighty leader he will be when the final conflict arrives. To prove he was indeed the figure spoken of in prophecy, K’shegla led an expedition out past Shargon’s Teeth into the open sea, where he encountered a young adult kraken and brought the beast low (at a cost of many sahuagin lives). This victory was impressive enough, but the real test came when he retreated to a secluded coral reef to devour the thing’s black heart and brain. When he emerged three days later, he was again transformed. K’shegla is now a unique aberration, a four-armed malenti with black eyes and silver-sheened skin. His form strikes awe in the hearts of his own race, and primal terror in the minds of other humanoids.

As a result of his startling metamorphosis, K’shegla has all but cemented his position as the savior warlord spoken of in prophecy by his followers. According to the prophecies, this figure, called the Shirrin Kho in the sahuagin tongue, must overcome one more trial before he is ready to lead his people to victory. He must locate and devour one particular land-walker—a person spoken of in the prophecies in very cryptic terms. Only when this individual is found, sacrificed, and ritually devoured will the Shirrin Kho’s transformation be complete, and only then will the Devourer grant him the blessing and the power to take control of his people—and make his destiny their own.

GETTING INVOLVED

The easiest way to get the PCs involved in K’shegla’s scheme is perhaps the most grisly. It’s possible that one of the PCs fits the description of the individual spoken of in K’shegla’s prophecies, leading him to send his minions to capture that person and bring him or her back for questioning. (He gives his agents the means of providing land-walkers with the ability to breathe water. He loathes stepping onto land and has vowed not to do so until that act serves as a first step toward conquest.) It’s even possible that a character would survive such an encounter. For a target to survive, K’shegla must be convinced that he’s got the wrong person.

The PCs can also get involved with K’shegla through the Raiders of the Gray Pearl (SX 64), a band of sahuagin that makes regular raids on coastal travelers and small ships entering or leaving Stormreach. The Raiders are led by a fellow malenti named Korel, who is in fact K’shegla’s primary agent on land. Since K’shegla never leaves the water, it would be a simpler proposition for PCs to come across K’shegla’s story by way of the Raiders, who might be encountered breaking into the PCs’ home.

Another possible lead-in involves the high priest Khalaash. With K’shegla’s transformation and the resultant popularity of his cause among the sahuagin, the priest might decide that the time has come for him to come clean about the dangers posed by his extremist sectarian rival. If one of the PCs is a scion of House Lyrandar, agents of the sahuagin could call upon that character (and possibly others of his house) to meet in secret to discuss the matter. If all goes well, such a meeting might preface a large-scale combat, wherein the PCs accompany the sahuagin into the depths of the sea below Stormreach to face down the mad messiah.

September 16th, 2019