Scorpion Crown
"Great Tharizdun, Master of Darkness and Decay, hear me now! Give me a token so that I may rule unquestioned and my people may bow down to me and me alone!"
—Shattados the Cruel, before the fall of Sulm[1]
The Scorpion Crown is an artifact sacred to Tharizdun. It was gifted to Shattados the Cruel, ruler of Sulm, shortly before his empire collapsed.[1]
Appearance
[edit | edit source]The Scorpion Crown is a crown of black iron, shaped like a scorpion.[1] The legs of the scorpion ring around the head, and the stinging tail reaches over the head. The crown is heavy and always cold.[2]
Properties
[edit | edit source]Powers
[edit | edit source]The crown has no beneficial powers.
Drawbacks
[edit | edit source]Shattados of Sulm, the king who first accepted this gift, found himself transformed into a terrible monster. His people became monstrous scorpion-folk, and his great kingdom became a lifeless sandy desert.[1]
Anyone who wears this artifact is immediately transformed into a monstrous creature known as a "master scorpion". Worse, the curse affects all those who owe the wearer allegiance, including servants, henchmen, or subjects. Those people all assume the form of a manscorpion, a beast with the head and torso of a human but the lower half of a giant scorpion.
The crown is also responsible for the ruin of the surrounding lands.
Destruction
[edit | edit source]The Scorpion Crown is a major artifact and cannot be destroyed by normal means.
Rumored ways to destroy the crown include dropping it into an active volcano in the Hellfurnaces,[2] melting it in the breath of a lawful good great wyrm dragon,[2] taking it to somewhere like the Negative Material Plane where it cannot survive,[2] or carrying it by spelljamming ship to the space between planets and feeding it to a massive spacefaring creature.[2]
History
[edit | edit source]Creation
[edit | edit source]The dark god Tharizdun created this artifact as a gift to Shattados, king of Sulm, around the year -700 CY. Shattados beseeched that malign entity's power to allow him to rule unquestioned over his unruly people.[1]
Only when it was too late did he learn that Tharizdun's artifacts are terribly cursed. The land where Sulm once stood decayed into what is now the Bright Desert.
Recent history
[edit | edit source]In 584 CY, Rary the Traitor murdered the archmages Tenser and Otiluke before fleeing to the Bright Desert in search of the Scorpion Crown.
In Living Greyhawk
[edit | edit source] | This section contains content from the Living Greyhawk organized-play campaign. |
The Scorpion Crown, and the machinations of Rary the Traitor, were the subject of an entire core plot arc in Living Greyhawk, Blight on Bright Sands (2005-2006) and Empire and Restoration (2008).
Rary sought to destroy the Scorpion Crown in 595-596 CY to recreate his domain and return the Bright Desert to its former verdant state by using certain magical items to unmake the crown[3] and break the Curse of Shattados which caused it to be a desert. "Ultimately, in Blight on Bright Sands, Rary’s attempt to gain the items he needed to destroy the Scorpion Crown failed. Bands of meddling adventurers ...thwarted Rary’s attempts to recover the items required to unmake the Scorpion Crown." "Perceiving the festering darkness of his soul, [they] sought to stymie his schemes, lending their swordarms to the virtuous lady-paladin, Karistyne, herself a loyal servant of the puissant archmage Tenser."
Some of the items he tried to collect were:
- an ancient prophecy inscribed upon a scroll crafted from the skin of a gold dragon[4]
- the Last Flower of Sulm[5]
- thinaun hidden in the legendary Pits of Azak-Zil[6][7][8]
- scimitar of evil aspect and great power – the Bane of Itar,[9] intentionally destroyed in the ruins of Darkbridge Temple[10]
- powerful good-aligned warhammer Goggorddu,[11] intentionally destroyed in the ruins of Darkbridge Temple[10]
"Of course, after his defeat, Rary does not simply give up. He is too clever and too determined for that and he has too many allies yet loyal to his cause. [...] Rary’s machinations continue in Rise of the Ancients a three-part core plot arc taking place in the Empire of the Bright Sands."[12] However, the campaign consequences or outcomes of the later plot arc weren't published publicly.
Publishing history
[edit | edit source]The Scorpion Crown was was a significant plot device in Rary the Traitor (1992).[1]
References
[edit | edit source]Citations
[edit | edit source]- ↑ a b c d e f WGR3 Rary the Traitor (1992), p.22.
- ↑ a b c d e WGR3 Rary the Traitor (1992), p.32-34.
- ↑ Broadhurst, Creighton (March 14, 2008). "Outcomes on Bright Sands". Wizards.com. WotC. Archived from the original on March 14, 2008.
- ↑ Dark Deceit on Bright Sands (2005) (RPGA)
- ↑ Time’s Tide on Bright Sands (2005) (RPGA)
- ↑ Mines of the Eye (2005) (RPGA)
- ↑ Phantoms on Bright Sands (2005) (RPGA)
- ↑ Pits of Azak-Zil (2006) (RPGA)
- ↑ Beneath the Bright Sands (2006) (RPGA)
- ↑ a b Dominion over Bright Sands (2006) (RPGA)
- ↑ Tears for Bright Sands (2006) (RPGA)
- ↑ Broadhurst, Creighton (13 March 2008). Outcome on Bright Sands (News blog). Wizards.com. WotC. Archived from the original on 31 October 2016. Retrieved on 13 August 2024.
Bibliography
[edit | edit source]- Pryor, Anthony. WGR3 Rary the Traitor. Lake Geneva, WI: TSR, 1992. Item code TSR9386.
Encyclopedia Greyhawkania Index
The Encyclopedia Greyhawkania Index (EGI) is based on previous work of Jason Zavoda through '08, continued by numerous other fans. The EGI article has a list of sources, product names, abbreviations, and a link to the full, downloadable index.
| Topic | Type | Description | Product | Page/Card/Image
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scorpion Crown | Item | Encyclopedia Magica - Volume I | 337 | |
| Scorpion Crown | Item | Artifact, | Dragon magazine #294 | 93 |
| Scorpion Crown | Item | Artifact, | WGR3 Rary the Traitor | 9, 12, 22, 27, 29, 32, 44, 46, 48, 51, 63 |