Describe a scenario of heroes fighting off Atropus [Elder Evils]

[Windrammer]

Wanted him to be a baddie in my campaign that had been fought off before, help would be much appreciated :smallsmile:

[(Un)Inspired]

Wanted him to be a baddie in my campaign that had been fought off before, help would be much appreciated :smallsmile:

The Party has been hired to escort a caravan through an area notoriously riddled with bandits. When they a re miles out on the road, away from any civilization, Atropus leaps out of the bushes with a crossbow saying, "Hand over all the loot!"

The PCs must engage the cad is combat to send him heading for the hills to protect the caravan's merchandise.

[Windrammer]

The Party has been hired to escort a caravan through an area notoriously riddled with bandits. When they a re miles out on the road, away from any civilization, Atropus leaps out of the bushes with a crossbow saying, "Hand over all the loot!"

The PCs must engage the cad is combat to send him heading for the hills to protect the caravan's merchandise.

Implying my PCs would protect a caravan instead of robbing it before anyone else got the chance

[(Un)Inspired]

Fair enough. Here's a new scenario.

The PCs are scouting out caravans to rob. The spot one that seems loaded to the brim with cargo. As they approach they call out, "Hand over all the loot!"

It turns out, however, that Atropus has been hired to guard the caravan. He pulls out his crossbow and the PCs must engage the cad in combat in order to sending him heading for the hills so that they can rob the caravan of it's merchandise.

[atemu1234]

You don't "fight off" an elder evil. It's like fighting off Cthulhu, or trying to stop the sun going out. They are death, and there is but one thing we say to death, "Not today."

[Bronk]

The Party has been hired to escort a caravan through an area notoriously riddled with bandits. When they a re miles out on the road, away from any civilization, Atropus leaps out of the bushes with a crossbow saying, "Hand over all the loot!"

The PCs must engage the cad is combat to send him heading for the hills to protect the caravan's merchandise.

Very Monty Pythonesque! (Also quite Douglas Adamsy)

[OldTrees1]

IIRC Atropus is the Moon of Necromancy that tries to enervate planets that contain life.

So Atropus starts by moving towards the planet. This will take a while so we will check back later.

The heroes are going about their daily lives(adventuring). However the radiation from the distant Atropus has already started to affect the planet. The Holy Man is the first to notice the rise in negative energy. The Holy Man convinces The Sage that this is an important sign to investigate.

Some time goes by. The Sage picked up a lead but it is an ancient text that was condemned for talking about dark things. It has been sealed away in a vault of a forgotten people. The Delver guides them through the safe(oops) safest path and opens the way.

Once they have the intel, The Tactician starts to design a plan. They will need a superweapon. The Sage will need to get them to and from the moonlet. The Delver will be in charge of finding the safest path to the target. The Holy Man will be in charge of warding off the negative radiation. The Tactician will be in charge of holding off "distractions".

[Windrammer]

You don't "fight off" an elder evil. It's like fighting off Cthulhu, or trying to stop the sun going out. They are death, and there is but one thing we say to death, "Not today."

Atropus has stats. He has abilities and hit points. Of course he can be fought off. It may be thematically displeasing with all the weight the term "elder evils" carries but that's not my concern here.

[ThisIsZen]

Atropus has stats. He has abilities and hit points. Of course he can be fought off. It may be thematically displeasing with all the weight the term "elder evils" carries but that's not my concern here.

Technically only the Aspect of Atropus has stats. Atropus itself is the entire moon and is basically beyond the scope of most non-epic games (though Tippy's PlanetPC might engage in the weirdest combat sequence ever run with him), and even some epic games, and in any case would have to have completely homebrewed stats.

That being said, the description of his Sign alone, along with the general flow of an 'Atropus campaign' as laid out in the EE book itself should give you some idea of what a previous encounter with the Planet Born Dead would look like. Among those not in the know, history books would mention a great cataclysm and an upwelling of the dead, and possibly an evil star in the sky that grew to enormous proportions. Depending on how close Atropus got before the heroes of old defeated its aspect, the world may have had to recover from a literal post-apocalyptic wasteland ruled by hordes of the dead. It's possible that records from before the 'Years of the Dead' are scarce and extremely valuable.

Legends would be told of a group of heroes (whose composition is up to you and your own intentions) traveling to the sky to fight off Death itself. Possibly there might even be mythic significance attached - religions dedicated to the heroes who ultimately felled Atropus, canonized or deified for their act. This is an especially poignant plot point if the heroes had no way to get off the moonlet after defeating the Aspect - a few minutes after it is killed, the entire moonlet rockets off into the void at speed, to places unknown. If the wizards and other casters of the group were spent in the battle, then the heroes never returned - the only indication that they succeeded was the disappearance of the evil star/moon and the dissipation of all of the negative energy.

I would advise against having the encounter be recent in any case unless you want to set your campaign in the post-apocalypse that follows a close encounter with Atropus.

[Threadnaught]

Atropus has stats. He has abilities and hit points. Of course he can be fought off. It may be thematically displeasing with all the weight the term "elder evils" carries but that's not my concern here.

Atropus does not have any listed stats in the book itself. It has an Aspect, which has stats. I have one hypothetical way to drive it off.


Atropus, it is a world and his aspect roams its face. PCs lure Atropus' aspect to them by expending their own abilities against its underlings in important locations. It has an Intelligence of 25 and can choose to fight the PCs whenever it deems necessary, the DM could postpone the fight indefinitely, but there must be a reason for it to go after the PCs other than to simply be a final boss. Perhaps the Undead denizens of the World Born Dead are the key to ending it's attack and it is the most powerful defence Atropus has against those capable of stopping it.

In order to summon Atropus to a world, there must be an event of mass death. This surge of life ending calls Atropus to the Campaign Setting, perhaps it is the PCs destroying powerful vessels of Negative Energy that causes it to leave by releasing it's own excess Negative Energy back into itself.

[OldTrees1]

Technically only the Aspect of Atropus has stats. Atropus itself is the entire moon and is basically beyond the scope of most non-epic games (though Tippy's PlanetPC might engage in the weirdest combat sequence ever run with him), and even some epic games, and in any case would have to have completely homebrewed stats.

A high level party might be able to assemble enough allies to demolish the moon with pure damage as long as the party makes the attack safe.

[atemu1234]

A high level party might be able to assemble enough allies to demolish the moon with pure damage as long as the party makes the attack safe.

D2 Crusader.

[Emperor Tippy]

D2 Crusader.

Can never destroy more than 1 five foot cube at a time.

[StoneCipher]

Curious on two things. Does Atropus or his aspect have True Death?

And, what would be the hypothetical interaction of Nerull and Atropus. They both have the same end goal...killing everything... but either Nerull likes to take his time or he doesnt have the power Atropus does. I am running a Nerull heavy campaign and I am considering adding Atropus to the mix because it fits thematically.

[Threadnaught]

Can never destroy more than 1 five foot cube at a time.

But if the Moonlet is Atropus' true body, which it is, then it is technically a creature. The only problem is it's lack of stats, if it were to be given stats, it would be possible for d2 Crusader to destroy it.

[Citrakayah]

It's a moon. What you do is obvious.

You blow it up.

No, really, you blow it up. And just one person can do it, too, you just need creativity. Cast death ward. Cast gaseous form on yourself. Cast a stilled, silenced greater teleportto the center of the moonlet; this will be a level nine spell slot.

Next, cast wish. Then Wish for a permanent portal to be formed at the center of the moonlet to the center of a star. Atropus will be cooked from the inside out.

Remember, Atropus is basically petrified flesh. It's a lot of petrified flesh, but ultimately it's vulnerable to the same techniques, and, looking at it purely as written, not only does it not have any defenses against such a technique, but it might not even take action, since it's motivated purely out of a desire to kill living beings, not preserve itself. Indeed, it apparently wouldn't mind dying.

So you make it very well-cooked.

[ThisIsZen]

It's a moon. What you do is obvious.

You blow it up.

No, really, you blow it up. And just one person can do it, too, you just need creativity. Cast death ward. Cast gaseous form on yourself. Cast a stilled, silenced greater teleportto the center of the moonlet; this will be a level nine spell slot.

Next, cast wish. Then Wish for a permanent portal to be formed at the center of the moonlet to the center of a star. Atropus will be cooked from the inside out.

Remember, Atropus is basically petrified flesh. It's a lot of petrified flesh, but ultimately it's vulnerable to the same techniques, and, looking at it purely as written, not only does it not have any defenses against such a technique, but it might not even take action, since it's motivated purely out of a desire to kill living beings, not preserve itself. Indeed, it apparently wouldn't mind dying.

So you make it very well-cooked.

The issue with that is that's a way to remove Atropus from the setting permanently, not to have had a 'first contact' moment that PCs can learn about as Atropus makes its return. It might be fine for a PC strategy (assuming the DM is okay with it) but pretty anticlimactic as a piece of history.

Personally, were I running it and the players decided to assault the moonlet itself, I'd probably have it be a high-CR epic encounter with divine ranks, considering that the World Born Dead is supposed to be the afterbirth of creation itself. You're fighting the opposite of the force which brought all of existence into being - just hammering it with shuriken or cooking it internally shouldn't be solutions to a problem of that magnitude.

That said, the OP is asking for ways for a previous band of adventurers to have driven off Atropus in the past (and, presumably, the sort of marks that'd leave on a campaign setting), not for ways to remove Atropus permanently. I stand by my suggestion to look at the advance of its Sign, then decide where your plucky band of heroes finally stopped armageddon, and figure out how much of an effect that would have on the setting as a whole. I'd personally favor an Overwhelming sign and a complete destruction+recreation of all society, simply because then you get an excuse to litter the world with ruins, ancient lore and manuscript fragments pointing towards what life was like before and what caused the End. At the same time, most people won't have any real understanding of the significance of the World Born Dead or its approach, so the PCs wouldn't really have a reason IC to know what's coming beyond sages warning that "this sort of thing has happened before" and similarly doomsday theorism.

[Starbuck_II]

IIRC Atropus is the Moon of Necromancy that tries to enervate planets that contain life.

So Atropus starts by moving towards the planet. This will take a while so we will check back later.

The heroes are going about their daily lives(adventuring). However the radiation from the distant Atropus has already started to affect the planet. The Holy Man is the first to notice the rise in negative energy. The Holy Man convinces The Sage that this is an important sign to investigate.

Some time goes by. The Sage picked up a lead but it is an ancient text that was condemned for talking about dark things. It has been sealed away in a vault of a forgotten people. The Delver guides them through the safe(oops) safest path and opens the way.

Once they have the intel, The Tactician starts to design a plan. They will need a superweapon. The Sage will need to get them to and from the moonlet. The Delver will be in charge of finding the safest path to the target. The Holy Man will be in charge of warding off the negative radiation. The Tactician will be in charge of holding off "distractions".

Well, in a DragonMech campaign, the end quest was to form a huge mech with air capacity like Breathers (used for underwater travel). The dragons and abberations attacked from the moon? Not our moon. It is all from Atropus this whole time. Every misfortune. Every death. Time to bring some payback.
This explains why divine casters are having trouble casting.

Requires getting elves and dwarves to work together to enchant the mech. (Need mech to have protect like Necklace of Adaptation for pilots/crew, negative energy plane protection, etc)

Now, his minions on him won't let this mech be when they arrive so they will bore a hole/phase through (incorporeals) so not everyone has to be a mech user as they need guards/protection).

But the Pcs have a good weapon: a Drill blade on the mech. This will be the drill that pierces the very heavens (or a moon at least)!

[Citrakayah]

The issue with that is that's a way to remove Atropus from the setting permanently, not to have had a 'first contact' moment that PCs can learn about as Atropus makes its return. It might be fine for a PC strategy (assuming the DM is okay with it) but pretty anticlimactic as a piece of history.

Okay, true. In that case, maybe the NPC adventurers just... moved? And then they left a nasty surprise for Atropus in the form of a supernova, but Atropus can go superliminal anyway so it didn't do anything aside from convince him to go someplace else.

Or, alternatively, maybe they tried using the Eclipse spell to slice it in half? They took the same amount of mass, and the same diameter object, but moved all the mass to the edges so it was basically a solid ring of neutronium only a few neutrons thick? It left a great big cut on Atropus' face, but didn't succeed in actually killing it, because Atropus noticed and sent undead to dispel the effect?


Personally, were I running it and the players decided to assault the moonlet itself, I'd probably have it be a high-CR epic encounter with divine ranks, considering that the World Born Dead is supposed to be the afterbirth of creation itself. You're fighting the opposite of the force which brought all of existence into being - just hammering it with shuriken or cooking it internally shouldn't be solutions to a problem of that magnitude.

That's your prerogative, I suppose. I tend to run more sci-fi based games, where if something is made of matter, you can kill it physically. If I wanted something that would have to be killed metaphysically, I'd send in something that was firmly tied to part of reality, like electromagnetism.

[ThisIsZen]

That's your prerogative, I suppose. I tend to run more sci-fi based games, where if something is made of matter, you can kill it physically. If I wanted something that would have to be killed metaphysically, I'd send in something that was firmly tied to part of reality, like electromagnetism.

Difference of styles, fair enough. That said, I think that there should be some mark left on the moonlet one way or another to signify the 'defeat' that it was dealt by the last group of adventurers. Either a scar on the moonlet itself or possibly make it clear that the Aspect was destroyed in the past and reformed - perhaps it's a corpse that has 're-grown' around a wound or something. Something that shows that this has been done before and can be done again.

[Citrakayah]

Yeah, that's why I suggested the neutronium ring method. Something like that could be easily handled in a variety of ways that would end up damaging Atropus, but wouldn't kill him. Perhaps they didn't take gravity into account and it ended up getting broken up and showering Atropus (and their own planet!) with neutronium shards, or maybe they couldn't get it to move fast enough and Atropus just moved away...

Are we talking about Atropus attacking a different planet, or the same planet? I've been assuming that Atropus went after a different planet and decided not to bother with that place again, but it looks like you're thinking that it's the same planet and Atropus is back for revenge or something.

The two ways would be a bit different in focus. In one case, you've got to anticipate Atropus early and do some scrying, then try and figure out what caused the damage--or, alternatively, try and find records of the people who pulled it off in an interplanar/interplanetary campaign. In the other, there'd be a lot of Indiana Jones-style exploration of old ruins as you tried to piece together what happened.

[Emperor Tippy]

-x-x-x-
The party did quest far and wide to find out how the dreaded Planet Born Dead had been defeated previously, for all of the great oracles agreed that it would grace the skies of Eberron before the turn of the century. It was a quest fraught with peril, for the party ventured deep into the Mournland to find a buried vault of Xen'drik relics that House Cannith was rumored to possessed and supposedly talked about a time when the world was shrouded in the veil of Necromancy. But with stout hearts and not a little luck the party succeeded, only to find that the treasure was nothing more than a fragment of a legend that made reference to a great draconic working to save the world from "a moon antithetical, a body who's very presence shrouded the entire world in negative energies that corroded life its self".

And so it was that the party set off to the continent of Argonnessen in the hope of finding a draconic sage who might be able to shed more like on the events of the distant past. Finally, after a long journey and not a few dead great wyrms the party met with and convinced the dread dragon Mozferno, greatest of the Reds, to refrain from burning them for their temerity and instead to share with them the information that they so sought. The party was most disappointed however, for even with the ten millennia that Mozferno had personally lived and the hundred millennia that his lineage's memories gave him access to, he did not actually know anything more than rumors, legends, and myths. But all was not lost for that oldest of existent dragons knew of one who might hold the knowledge the party sought; the one known only as Akkarin. Fortunately the wyrm knew where the old sage lived, at least where he had lived three thousand years gone when the two had conversed on a matter of philosophy.

Thus did the parties quest continue into the dark continent, Xen'drik, and deep into its crumbing ruins and jungles teaming with hostile life of all sorts. Long did they continue, fighting all manner of foes and learning secrets that any of the great Dragonmarked Houses would beggar themselves twice over to possess. Finally though did they find the home of the most learned sage and then did they enter that crystal spire that was no where and everywhere, containing everything and nothing.

Through the spire did they pass only with great difficulty, and even this only because of Mozferno's information. It was a tower where time and space bent in ways that none but the greatest of mystic masters could begin to comprehend, where one step was all it took to move between worlds. In the heart of this tower did they finally find the sage, only to stand in stunned perplexity for this great sage appeared to be a human of no more than two or three decades.

When the party did tell the supposed sage of their quest and asked for what information he could provide the sage did give a most bitter laugh before saying "Defeat? We never defeated Atropus. I was old when he came to our world, at least by your reckoning, and I was arrogant in my power. With nothing more than a thought I had slain princes of hell and bound their essence in trinkets for all time, I had brought entire empires crashing down with no more effort than it would take an apprentice wizard to conjure a ball of light. It was all meaningless before the might of the World Born Dead. It's avatars were as nothing next to the true body, and so I did what few other entities in all of existence can even begin to comprehend. I shattered time and forced my memories and soul back into my old self. I rallied the greatest masters of the mystic arts to grace my world; Lich's and Saints, High Elf and Drow, enemies with feuds lasting from the dawn of time. Together we did that which was previously only the province of the greatest of deities. We found a prime material plane far from our native corner of the multiverse, one free of any great powers, and then we created a world using nothing save our own power. It cost us most dear but Eberron was born that day. We moved what peoples we could from our native world to this new world of ours before concealing our activities to the greatest extent possible. So no, we never defeated Atropus. It was the greatest working of our world to manage to flee that dread moons presence. And yet here we are, almost ten million years since that day and our reprieve appears over."

The party found the sages tale hard to credit but they believed for some reason that they could not consciously name. And though they did argue most fervently for the sage to once again take up the fight against the World Born Dead, the sage did refuse for reasons that he would not state. As the party found its self standing in a small village a days travel from Sharn, a message seemed to resonate in their minds "I care little for Atropus's petty antics any longer, my concerns are as far beyond your comprehension as your concern for Atropus is beyond the concerns of a solitary ant. But I am not heartless. Down in the deepest depths of Kyber exists the Heartchamber, the exact place where we created this world so long ago. Inside the chamber lies a link to all life yet born, all positive energy yet used. Any who place one of the Crowns that sit in that chamber upon their brow shall become an avatar of that pure life. All who do so are dead men walking, for their souls will become saturated with the power of creation and burn themselves to nothing; beyond the realm of any force to save or recreate. No Crown shall be worn unless all are worn unless you wish to see this world dead."

-x-x-x-
The party goes and gets the Major Artifacts and then travels to the moon before using their power to blow up the moon by overloading it with its opposite, the party all dies accomplishing this incredible feat. New legends are spun and life goes on.

[Khedrac]

It's a moon. What you do is obvious.

You blow it up.

No, really, you blow it up. And just one person can do it, too, you just need creativity. Cast death ward. Cast gaseous form on yourself. Cast a stilled, silenced greater teleportto the center of the moonlet; this will be a level nine spell slot.

Next, cast wish. Then Wish for a permanent portal to be formed at the center of the moonlet to the center of a star. Atropus will be cooked from the inside out.

Remember, Atropus is basically petrified flesh. It's a lot of petrified flesh, but ultimately it's vulnerable to the same techniques, and, looking at it purely as written, not only does it not have any defenses against such a technique, but it might not even take action, since it's motivated purely out of a desire to kill living beings, not preserve itself. Indeed, it apparently wouldn't mind dying.

So you make it very well-cooked.

It's a nice idea but somehow I get the feeling that in a few years time, probably long after the celebrations stop, someone will wonder why the sun is turning black... It's going to be much harder combat the "new" Atropus - the star born dead...

And as to why it's your sun not a more distant one? - well you are limited to your own Crystal Sphere and there is pretty much only ever one star per sphere (though there can be some much smaller fire bodies too).


-x-x-x-
The party did quest far and wide to find out how the dreaded Planet Born Dead had been defeated previously, ...

I love it! You aren't perchance a novelist are you?

[StoneCipher]

The two ways would be a bit different in focus. In one case, you've got to anticipate Atropus early and do some scrying, then try and figure out what caused the damage--or, alternatively, try and find records of the people who pulled it off in an interplanar/interplanetary campaign. In the other, there'd be a lot of Indiana Jones-style exploration of old ruins as you tried to piece together what happened.

Atropus is immune to divination. You'll never be able to detect his arrival until its basically too late and he's hitting you in the eye like a big rotten pizza pie, that's Atropus.

[Citrakayah]

So place your scrying point a sufficient distance away from him that it's outside his scrying shutdown range, but close enough that he isn't microscopic in your field of view.

[Exegesis]

13th-level wizard

To create it had taken nearly all her wealth, to get to the point where she could create it had taken endless battles against the undead. Now Atropus itself was barely a thousand miles away, said her divinations, and the gods were silent. But the whole air of the earth resounded with winged zombies and zelekhuts clashing.

On the floor before her, a ten-foot cube of carnelian stone (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#cubicGate).
On each face, a gem carved with a sigil.
Where the light-diamond led was obvious even if you couldn't read Celestial.
But M'khshya!ka...could.

She breathed deeply, walked up to it and pressed the gem once, then ducked around the corner of the cube to avoid being blinded as that entire face transformed into a seemingly depthless field of brilliant light—a gateway to the Positive Energy Plane, of whose pure condensed substance the light-diamond had been made.

Half dazzled even by the emanation visible from where she was now, but without pausing, she placed her hand on the cube and teleported it to the heart of Atropus. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/teleportObject.htm)

Edit: she needs to have been there once, so she'll need to be 15th level (or UMD) and then can just Ghostform, Greater Teleport there herself, take the activated cube out of her Bag of Holding, Teleport back home.

[Threadnaught]

Perhaps someone in the homebrew forum could stat Atropus, so Emperor Win could kick it's ass or turn it into a Mind Raped slave.

[Qwertystop]

Can never destroy more than 1 five foot cube at a time.

Great Cleave increases that to all the cubes in reach, and isn't there some way to take 5' steps between Cleave attacks? An epic feat or something?

[Khedrac]

13th-level wizard

To create it had taken nearly all her wealth, to get to the point where she could create it had taken endless battles against the undead. Now Atropus itself was barely a thousand miles away, said her divinations, and the gods were silent. But the whole air of the earth resounded with winged zombies and zelekhuts clashing.

On the floor before her, a ten-foot cube of carnelian stone (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#cubicGate).
On each face, a gem carved with a sigil.
Where the light-diamond led was obvious even if you couldn't read Celestial.
But M'khshya!ka...could.

She breathed deeply, walked up to it and pressed the gem once, then ducked around the corner of the cube to avoid being blinded as that entire face transformed into a seemingly depthless field of brilliant light—a gateway to the Positive Energy Plane, of whose pure condensed substance the light-diamond had been made.

Half dazzled even by the emanation visible from where she was now, but without pausing, she placed her hand on the cube and teleported it to the heart of Atropus. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/teleportObject.htm)

Edit: she needs to have been there once, so she'll need to be 15th level (or UMD) and then can just Ghostform, Greater Teleport there herself, take the activated cube out of her Bag of Holding, Teleport back home.
and nothing happened...

Gates to places like the Positive Energy Plane exist, notably as color pools in the Ethereal, they are NOT energy-spewing mini-stars. If it was the energy-spewing star suggested and needed for this to do anything, then M'khshya!ka would not survive to teleport the gate.

Also remember we do not have Atropus' stats, just the aspect. Somehow I don't think anyone who tries to travel into Atropus while incorporeal will come out again, for one thing there are a LOT of incorporeal undead and Atropus is known for being crawling with undead.
Speaking of which - doesn't the rule that incorporeal creatures cannot pass through an object unless they can touch both sides at once prevent getting to the center this way? (Yes I know Atropus isn't an object, but then it's not really a creature either.)

[Zanos]

Atropus is immune to divination. You'll never be able to detect his arrival until its basically too late and he's hitting you in the eye like a big rotten pizza pie, that's Atropus.
With sufficiently high Knowledge checks you'll know it's Atropus as soon as any of his signs start appearing.

[Khedrac]

With sufficiently high Knowledge checks you'll know it's Atropus as soon as any of his signs start appearing.

If you are in the that category you will probably just move to a different world - why risk fighting him?

Actually I am not sure that's true - which Knowledge is giving you the information? Because Atropus himself is unstated we cannot say that any of the normal checks to learn about an entity will work...

[Exegesis]

Re: Khedrac

Even more than what you point out, it's naive to assume Atropus couldn't push one object out of its body even if it did work. Also, teleporting into it would probably violate the no teleporting into creatures clause.

(Could you make any structure immune to teleportation by Animating it?) (Wish--specific trumps general, would that overrule the clause about not teleporting into solids?)

So probably nuclear warheads are the best way to go? It's only an asteroid of flesh. Since undead creatures still apparently feed and produce cells, the radiation poisoning if nothing else might be brutal.

Saw the Fusion Gate Method, but Wish can't do that and there don't seem to be any ways to create permanent interplanar/long distance portals.

[Qwertystop]

Wish can move any creature from anywhere to anywhere - if Atropus counts as a creature (so you can't teleport into it), then you can just move Atropus.

[Exegesis]

So off to the Positive Energy Plane with Atropus in that case. Otherwise, I wonder if Teleport Object would work on subatomic particles, if you could figure out they existed, for easy fission?

Everyone was consumed in fighting, doing penance for, or seeking a solution to this disaster. One wu jen, confident that the greater spirits knew some way to stop it—or reasoning that since he was the only one who could speak to them, to do so on the chance they did was his most effective option—spent a month scribing as many scrolls of Commune with Greater Spirit as possible. Each would allow him to ask the spirit a question, and allow the spirit a single word in return. When he had a library's worth he traveled to the enclave of the wisest primal spirit and had a good conversation about ways of exploding a protein asteroid. He brought his plan to the mageguild of a powerful city, relying on his heroic reputation (and several standing bounties for a plan) to be taken seriously; probably he used his fortune to hire a wizard to demonstrate its feasibility.

They managed the destruction. And now a radioactive, mutated Atropus has coalesced from its smithereens and is shadowing the planet once more.

[Starbuck_II]

Wish can move any creature from anywhere to anywhere - if Atropus counts as a creature (so you can't teleport into it), then you can just move Atropus.

Why not teleport it to the Abyss? Piss off some demons, but eh, they had it coming.

[Citrakayah]

Re: Khedrac

Even more than what you point out, it's naive to assume Atropus couldn't push one object out of its body even if it did work. Also, teleporting into it would probably violate the no teleporting into creatures clause.

(Could you make any structure immune to teleportation by Animating it?) (Wish--specific trumps general, would that overrule the clause about not teleporting into solids?)

So probably nuclear warheads are the best way to go? It's only an asteroid of flesh. Since undead creatures still apparently feed and produce cells, the radiation poisoning if nothing else might be brutal.

Saw the Fusion Gate Method, but Wish can't do that and there don't seem to be any ways to create permanent long distance portals.

Well, technically, the effects of wish aren't strictly limited by what's in the spell description.

Though I suppose it would be easier to make a custom magic item... there's nothing keeping you from doing so.

[FrznTear]

I ended my Eberron campaign with Atropus.
One of the players, a crusader, submitted a prophecy that they'd like to be linked to their character that mentioned things such as mass destruction and death, required items, self-sacrifice and such.
Those who would raise a destructive army of steel,
Those that defy time and life to bring chaos
Those that sunder gates and their keepers
The looming terror from above has greater power

In an attempt to control it,
He is consumed along with his legion,
The unopposed evil shall march,
The war shall spread like a disease.

The world shall become a feast of violence,
Of flesh, blood and steel,
The righteous shall fall,
Innocence will die.

The Harbinger opposed, slain by kin
But death is not true
His wrath invoked, the power set free
The black sun will rise

Evil shall reign supreme,
Ancient forbidden terrors released,
Towers of prestige shall shatter,
And the good of the world shall remain in one nation.

But to save us from the evil,
We must make the ultimate sacrifice,
To release the great god machine,
And the silent one shall be its core.

With the armor of truth denied,
The blade of a heroic villain,
And the rites of innocent sin branded to her,
She shall unleash a second impact.

This impact shall banish the power back to the stars,
Turning the seas red with sin,
Evil shall hide among our sacrificed land,
And Justice shall reign once more.


The PC used a special armor to merge with an item from the Eberron Adventure Paths Xulo, the creation pattern in order to merge with the adamatine mobile fortress looted from the lord of blades which can be transformed into a giant mech. The parties factotum/professor scientist dude designed changes to their airships to turn it into a ride-able mechanical dragon bolstered by the party wizard. The crusader flew to the one too many spooky looking moon[with all the moons Eberron has Atropus can be a pretty sneaky dude] to slash it open with a massive blade to deliver a payload of whatever turned Cyre into the mournlands. The party bard wrote a song about it.

[Exegesis]

If you can find some way to be immune to damage, for example 3 or 4 Scarabs of Invulnerability...Greater Teleport into an immensely hot star (the teleport restriction is only on solids), cast Forcecage to trap a handful of it, GT to Atropus, Disintegrate the Forcecage, Teleport out.

Just saw the spell Major Creation. Knowledge barrier is obviously big, but all it would take is Creating a bunch of unstable uranium.


Khedron's idea that the planetoid is this huge bristling womb of wraiths and stuff is really neat, especially considering Atropus is a severed head. It's very Sleep of Reason Produces Madness.

In keeping with Frzn's post above......drill into Atropus and lobotomize it.

Anticipatably, a braindead Atropus would just crash down to flatten Earth.

I don't know much about atmospheric entry, could you gradually burn it down by bouncing it off walls of force in the atmosphere?

[ThisIsZen]

I'm not 100% sure of the equations and such of atmospheric re-entry, but given that you're combusting solid material, I'm fairly certain that playing ping-pong with a moon would actually burn away most of a planet's atmosphere long before the moon disappeared. Remember, gases are also consumed when something combusts.

In addition, objects DO fragment upon atmospheric re-entry, so you'd have to deal with bits of Atropus coming down, and possibly local leeching of atmosphere to the moon as well.

It's basically a world-ending event if any moon falls. The masses and forces involved are just too immense. Even repelling a falling moon-sized satellite would involve drastic atmospheric and environmental damage and restructuring.

[Exegesis]

Atropus is only 3 miles in diameter (or radius, forget which).

Wikipedia gives 35m as the size needed to survive entry, which hints that this is, even so, less than feasible.

Atropus is a giant frozen head rather than rubble, which may or may not affect fragmentation.

So blowing it up is probably best.

[Andezzar]

Exegesis is killing catgirls again.

What about simply having a Zodar wish atopus dead destroyed/erased from history? While this may be beyond the standard list for wish, you are not the one wishing and as such you do not have to live with the consequences.

As for a previous encounter with Atropus. Can Atropus change direction? Maybe previously powerful adventurers lured him away from the gameworld with much more tasty life forms. So knowledge about the creature exists in the world and it has not been destroyed, but has not been near the world for a long time.

Alternately rip off the first "solution" to the Alduin problem from Skyrim.

[atemu1234]

Atropus is only 3 miles in diameter (or radius, forget which).

Wikipedia gives 35m as the size needed to survive entry, which hints that this is, even so, less than feasible.

Atropus is a giant frozen head rather than rubble, which may or may not affect fragmentation.

So blowing it up is probably best.

One word: MAGIC.

[Exegesis]

If you can find some way to be immune to damage, for example 3 or 4 Scarabs of Invulnerability...Greater Teleport into an immensely hot star (the teleport restriction is only on solids), cast Forcecage to trap a handful of it, GT to Atropus, Disintegrate the Forcecage, Teleport out............
Yes.

[Citrakayah]

Whoop de do, you've incinerated a small portion of Atropus. Keep it up for a really long time and you might get somewhere.

Keep in mind that lightning bolts are three times hotter than the surface of the Sun. Temperature isn't the only thing at play here, total heat content also matters a lot.

[StoneCipher]

The problem with any "simple" solutions such as wish it into the positive energy plane or anything of that nature is that Atropus is theorized to be the creator of all life, including the gods. So, the DM has carte blanche on that supposition to just basically make it immune to any of those shenanigans. It's not like you can wish some god into the middle of a sun.

[Threadnaught]

Simple solution, Atropus consumes all life/Positive Energy on a world and overloads it with Negative Energy.

In the adventure Atropus leaves once several incredibly powerful vessels of Negqtive Energy as destroyed, overloading Atropus with Negative Energy. Enervating Atropus should be able to send it a'packing almost instantaneously. Throwing Positive Energy at Atropus itself is just feeding it and going to make it come faster. Linking it to the Positive Energy Plane is the worst course of action possible, as it will absorb all Positive Energy in existence.

The same isn't true for Atropus' Aspect however.

[Mitchellnotes]

If you were NASA what you might do is place an object of suitable mass close to the moon suitably long enough ago that gravity pulls Atropus off in a direction where itll miss the planet altogether, assuming of course that Atropus doesn't have its own means of locomotion. Even so, could be how the first group "delayed" the approach, it took Atropus that long to course correct.

[Exegesis]

Whoop de do, you've incinerated a small portion of Atropus. Keep it up for a really long time and you might get somewhere.

Keep in mind that lightning bolts are three times hotter than the surface of the Sun. Temperature isn't the only thing at play here, total heat content also matters a lot.

Sun's surface temperature: 6,000 Celsius
Sun's core temperature: 15,000,000 Celsius

Greater Teleport has no range limit and doesn't bar teleporting into plasma (it doesn't even have restrictions against teleporting into solids, which you could presumably do with Ghostform) so if you teleported to the "core of the hottest star" you'd be free to take your cube from the core of a blue hypergiant ten times hotter than the Sun. (Though I don't know if core temp would scale with surface.)

Releasing even a forcecage worth of that in the middle of a 3-mile brain should be more than piddling. Even if it just dissipated, rather than creating a chain reaction, which is where I'm ignorant.

And even with 4 scarabs you could do this daily.

But again, fission-by-Teleport Object or Major Creation of unstable material.

[Citrakayah]

Sun's surface temperature: 6,000 Celsius
Sun's core temperature: 15,000,000 Celsius

Greater Teleport has no range limit and doesn't bar teleporting into plasma (it doesn't even have restrictions against teleporting into solids, which you could presumably do with Ghostform) so if you teleported to the "core of the hottest star" you'd be free to take your cube from the core of a blue hypergiant ten times hotter than the Sun. (Though I don't know if core temp would scale with surface.)

Releasing even a forcecage worth of that in the middle of a 3-mile brain should be more than piddling. Even if it just dissipated, rather than creating a chain reaction, which is where I'm ignorant.

And even with 4 scarabs you could do this daily.

But again, fission-by-Teleport Object or Major Creation of unstable material.

Pretty sure it would just dissipate. In any event, yes, the surface is much cooler than the center, but there are a whole lot of lightning bolts, and the ultimate point is that a handful sized amount of stellar matter isn't going to do very much for the same reason that you can stand near a lightning bolt and not be incinerated.

[ThisIsZen]

Sun's surface temperature: 6,000 Celsius
Sun's core temperature: 15,000,000 Celsius

Greater Teleport has no range limit and doesn't bar teleporting into plasma (it doesn't even have restrictions against teleporting into solids, which you could presumably do with Ghostform) so if you teleported to the "core of the hottest star" you'd be free to take your cube from the core of a blue hypergiant ten times hotter than the Sun. (Though I don't know if core temp would scale with surface.)

Releasing even a forcecage worth of that in the middle of a 3-mile brain should be more than piddling. Even if it just dissipated, rather than creating a chain reaction, which is where I'm ignorant.

And even with 4 scarabs you could do this daily.

But again, fission-by-Teleport Object or Major Creation of unstable material.

It would dissipate near-instantly, and also if you teleported into the core of the hottest star you'd be immediately ripped into strands by magnetic forces and pressures beyond the scope of the game to really represent. I honestly wouldn't let non-Epic spells protect you from the sheer violence of a star's core. Not to mention that you'd just die of radiation poisoning later, 'cause I don't think cancers deal stat damage and therefore the scarabs can't protect you.

Stars are incredibly delicately balanced - the infall pressure has to balance the explosive pressure in a star or the whole thing just either collapses or evaporates. Taking a few meters of star core out of a star means you have a plasma soup that is no longer being crushed hard enough to even APPROACH its natural state. A 3-mile diameter sphere is also a fair bit of space to disperse that heat into - if you were to bring that star core plasma into an atmosphere you'd probably light it on fire, but I'm uncertain that you'd do the same to the moonlet.

That said, if the natural rules dictate what happens to Atropus, then the natural rules should also dictate what happens to you - if a small piece of a star's core can kill the moonlet, then going TO the star's core is going to kill you. If it can't kill you, it can't kill the moonlet. I can't really see this working both ways.

[Exegesis]

Well, again, immunity to all damage and resurrection once you're back home (or just make a clone). But yes, letting the scarab overpower the star is a bit insane.

Really interesting about the dissipation, thanks for taking the time to answer.

Propelling this thread deeper into its unlife...teleport fission. Another way to do this, if Teleport Object is ruled to lack sufficient control for that, could be the psionic sandwich trick to inhabit a subatomic particle and then teleporting out with whatever method.

And then there's the Major Creation route where the challenge is building the nukes. I'm sure this hasn't been discussed to death.

And since you can only presume the deities are idiot savants, you have the challenge of discovering subatomic particles first.

[StoneCipher]

Again, Atropus is a fallen GOD, if not an overgod. If the moonlet itself can be taken out that easily, the gods would not fear it so much. You would literally need some armageddon type plan where you drill to the moonlet's core somehow and place an atom bomb up its ass. Perhaps dropping it in the fissure might be deep enough. And, that's not to say Atropus can't see this doomsday plan coming. When you beat the aspect of atropus it rockets away at a dynamic 36 million miles per hour. Who is to say it can't do that whenever it wants?

[ZamielVanWeber]

If you are in the that category you will probably just move to a different world - why risk fighting him?

Actually I am not sure that's true - which Knowledge is giving you the information? Because Atropus himself is unstated we cannot say that any of the normal checks to learn about an entity will work...

They mention that Atropus doesn't always descend on worlds. It often takes great death for him to notice a world's presence and descend upon it.
It is entirely possible a weird moon showed up, a bunch of undead showed up, and that is where the story ends... for now.

[Exegesis]

Again, Atropus is a fallen GOD, if not an overgod. If the moonlet itself can be taken out that easily, the gods would not fear it so much. You would literally need some armageddon type plan where you drill to the moonlet's core somehow and place an atom bomb up its ass. Perhaps dropping it in the fissure might be deep enough. And, that's not to say Atropus can't see this doomsday plan coming. When you beat the aspect of atropus it rockets away at a dynamic 36 million miles per hour. Who is to say it can't do that whenever it wants?

I have no idea what the gods are even doing with their time except that the Prime is a fish tank or they are in some kind of horrific Zoroastrian equilibrium that lets them spare nothing but spell slots. If this were proper mythology Elder Evils would simply be subject to divine whackamole and everyone could enjoy the harvest fearing only wolves.

If we're talking about tactics, Atropus is clearly a scavenger who hies it at the least scathe to his avatar. The premise of this thread seems to be that he doesn't, because that's ridiculous, but that might be wrong. He's clearly in it for the long haul, so it's not worth the risk to even try and assault any world with advanced society on the off-chance that it could destroy him. He probably preys most on planets going through major extinction events. So why, in the standard Atropus campaign, was his flight cued by the fact that his avatar was destroyed and not simply by the realization that the planet had beings capable of teleporting to him? Maybe he's low on fuel and willing to risk more; maybe it was the latter and it simply took time for him to register it/pick up speed.

This could add up to it being a better idea to kill the aspect, easy, send him running, then GT to Atropus at some later point and blow him up where there is no meteor risk to Earth.

On the other hand, if a single world capable of teleporting to him becomes aware of him they can do so at any time, no matter where he is. Atropus probably knows that he's screwed anyway and fight might be more reasonable then than flight.

So he's never met a planet advanced or concerted enough to destroy him before. He's likely vulnerable. If he's sentient, and had a defense mechanism, he wouldn't flee.

In this universe magic is probably something that's immediately beneficial to whoever uses it, but provides little incentive to advance in knowledge, so you get a bevy of planets where we are right now, facing (more or less similar) SRDs and Spell Compendiums.

Why this is stumping is you'd think Wishing or Teleporting yourself to a civilized planet would be pretty obvious.

Either we're in a period before this happens, are alone, or it already has, which would definitely account for D&D's diversity of fauna. Maybe there's something preventing these interplanetary bonds becoming permanent.

FYI, two ideas:
- Atropus is slowly being ground down by vengeful creatures whose world he destroyed. All those pockmarks on him are not asteroid impacts. They're last-ditch f-bombs. This is a great galactic effort that is, after a hundred last stands, going nowhere. Alternatives needed.
- Atropus's machinery is broken. He actually DOES have defenses against the kinds of destruction that have been outlined, but he—a semi-sentient, algorithmic undead—is still keyed to flee when an aspect dies. Perhaps this is a vestige of a time when there were enemies who could destroy him, who've since gone dormant.
- In combination with the above, civilization is yes intergalactic and linked by Teleport Circles and all they can do with Atropus is play hot potato.

[Citrakayah]

Again, Atropus is a fallen GOD, if not an overgod. If the moonlet itself can be taken out that easily, the gods would not fear it so much. You would literally need some armageddon type plan where you drill to the moonlet's core somehow and place an atom bomb up its ass. Perhaps dropping it in the fissure might be deep enough. And, that's not to say Atropus can't see this doomsday plan coming. When you beat the aspect of atropus it rockets away at a dynamic 36 million miles per hour. Who is to say it can't do that whenever it wants?

Atropus blocks divine power, which makes sense given his nature. The gods have excellent reason to be creeped out by him even if Colonel Carter could blow it up.

(Which she could.)

[Starbuck_II]

Again, Atropus is a fallen GOD, if not an overgod. If the moonlet itself can be taken out that easily, the gods would not fear it so much. You would literally need some armageddon type plan where you drill to the moonlet's core somehow and place an atom bomb up its ass. Perhaps dropping it in the fissure might be deep enough. And, that's not to say Atropus can't see this doomsday plan coming. When you beat the aspect of atropus it rockets away at a dynamic 36 million miles per hour. Who is to say it can't do that whenever it wants?



Because he is immune to divine magic (like that of Gods). So Gods can't effect him.
Which is why I say teleport him to Abyss/Hell, let the demons/devils who aren't gods deal with him.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Because he is immune to divine magic (like that of Gods). So Gods can't effect him.
Which is why I say teleport him to Abyss/Hell, let the demons/devils who aren't gods deal with him.

That seems like a terrible plan. Asmodeus will just turn it into a plane ending smart bomb and you really want to hand the OMNICIDAL demons a weapon of mass destruction? Best case scenario is they bounce it right back.

[StoneCipher]

Yeah in the lore battle against Atropus, a demon, Gorguth actually sides with Atropus and aids in his destruction of the world.

[Exegesis]

Atropus apparently draws his energy from the Negative Energy Plane. It might be interesting if you let the Wish teleport work, sent him into the Positive, and the two planes cancelled each other out. No more healing/resurrection magic or new undead, ever. I think the best explanation for Atropus's invulnerability is that the Negative Energy Plane gives him more or less infinite regeneration, and the only way to actually destroy him would be to destroy the NEP itself.

Of course, you could just Wish him to the opposite edge of the universe and repeat as necessary, if you felt undead existing to be a lesser evil than the loss of Raise Dead and CLW.

[Scipio_77]

You don't "fight off" an elder evil. It's like fighting off Cthulhu, or trying to stop the sun going out. They are death, and there is but one thing we say to death, "Not today."

Pretty much this. You don't use an "elder evil" like the Orc Chieftain at the end of the dungeon for level 1s.

An elder evil like Atropus is the "end" of your campaign, it is is the equivalent of full blown nuclear holocaust in a fantasy setting. The aim is to preserve whichever slivers of your known world that you can, there is no victory... the goal is to avoid complete annihilation.

The exception would be a campaigns where your players are demigods and/or amongst the most powerful beings imaginable, but campaigns like that tend to contain a lot of homebrew and aren't really suited for RAW-style scenarios.

[Andezzar]

The exception would be a campaigns where your players are demigods and/or amongst the most powerful beings imaginable, but campaigns like that tend to contain a lot of homebrew and aren't really suited for RAW-style scenarios.Umm the campaign snippets in the Elder Evils book assume that the PCs are demigods (epic characters) by the time they get to interact with Atropus. Atropus in Faerun (and possibly other established campaign settings) is really weird. The signs of his/her/its coming can be seen a lot earlier, why wouldn't one of the resident demigods (Elminster, Khelben etc.) deal with it? Why wouldn't the lowly contact them to have them nip the problem in the bud?

That whole scenario makes sense if the power level of the PCs is somehow unique, but nearly every campaign setting has NPCs that could easily deal with Atropus.

[Scipio_77]

Umm the campaign snippets in the Elder Evils book assume that the PCs are demigods (epic characters) by the time they get to interact with Atropus. Atropus in Faerun (and possibly other established campaign settings) is really weird. The signs of his/her/its coming can be seen a lot earlier, why wouldn't one of the resident demigods (Elminster, Khelben etc.) deal with it? Why wouldn't the lowly contact them to have them nip the problem in the bud?

That whole scenario makes sense if the power level of the PCs is somehow unique, but nearly every campaign setting has NPCs that could easily deal with Atropus.

I'm not sure what your point is. Epic characters tend to be more powerful than "core setting" NPCs like Elminster and Khelben, and if you assume a direct confrontation with the Aspect of Atropus it is probably a reasonable fight.

But beings on the power level of said aspect are far from unheard of, and it is not those powers that make Atropus an elder evil.

[Andezzar]

Elminster is Fighter 1/Rogue 2/Cleric 3/Wizard 24/Archmage 5 according to ELH (I can't find a newer source relevant to 3.5). Khelben Arunsun is Wizard 24/Archmage 3 according to CoS-W. And even many of the evil superpowers would be against someone annihilating their playground.