Ok, but what is the Sapphire Eidolon?

[Venger]

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/65/Happy_fun_ball.jpg/300px-Happy_fun_ball.jpg

If you don't already know, the Sapphire Eidolon is a lump of "crystalline incarnum" (whatever the heck that is) 30 feet in diameter which nominally has telepathic powers and may or may not be able to answer communes at will. (The evidence suggest its handlers, four high level clerics, probably answer the questions and tell underlings orders come from the Sapphire Eidolon.) It functions like an elder brain for the Sapphire Hierarchs and bosses them around, but only admin is allowed to talk to it directly or interpret its wishes, so maybe it's just a big rock they painted blue.

The text refers to it as "a creature," but is disappointingly silent on its stats and does not provide a statblock. I don't expect that it's statted up elsewhere, but if it is, where? If not, what kind of monster do you think this thing is?

[Particle_Man]

It is a super computer that is so good at calculating cause and effect that it can predict the future. It is sentient, immortal (eternal in both temporal directions), and obsessed with increasing law in the universe to hasten its reunification.

[gkathellar]

I don't expect that it's statted up elsewhere, but if it is, where?

It isn't, and it probably shouldn't be. It is a pity that we didn't learn more about it and its cult, though.


If not, what kind of monster do you think this thing is?

It's an enormous mass of lawful-aligned soul energy that serves as a locus of worship for a large number of clerics of order. It's clearly not quite a god, but it's also capable of fulfilling at least some of the functions of one.


It is a super computer that is so good at calculating cause and effect that it can predict the future. It is sentient, immortal (eternal in both temporal directions), and obsessed with increasing law in the universe to hasten its reunification.

That sounds good too.

[weckar]

It feels like one of those designed blank spots for the DM to fill in. It is generally unknowable to the public, so the truth is malleable.

[Mr Adventurer]

I guess if souls have alignment, and Lawfulness includes desiring structure, then Lawful souls could end up self-agglomerising as they seek structure and create it between themselves. Being just souls, though, they don't have much in the way of individual identity (that's what tends to come with a life actually being lived). So they're just a unified expression of Lawfulness.

We know that souls can be a source of power directly (c.f. Ashardalon) and through the mechanisms of the Outer Planes (worship, belief, and subsumption into the afterlife). So maybe a massive clump of them can indeed wield those sorts of powers.

As for exactly what happened, and how it came to be where it is, no clue.

[The Viscount]

It's rough description and mountaintop location are bizarrely similar to Father Llymic. Wouldn't that be a mean way to screw over the poor soul who enters this class?

[Mr Adventurer]

It's rough description and mountaintop location are bizarrely similar to Father Llymic.

:smallconfused: What similarities are you referring to?

[The Viscount]

It's isolated on a mountaintop and a large crystalline structure, similar to Father Llymic's imprisonment deep within the ice. A facile comparison, I know. I suppose I should have gone with Pandorym given that it's a being of great intelligence and unknowable nature, in a giant crystal, but I went with Llymic since he's able to exert some influence externally.

[ZamielVanWeber]

An odd excuse to give arcane casters the generic cool PrC whole divine casters are stuck with the weird PrCs with odd class features that don't synergize with the new magic system.

I mean, "an interesting alien entity." Yea.

[Mr Adventurer]

"Remnant of Pandorym's home universe that escaped destruction through the rift that called Pandorym to our universe" would be an interesting take...

[tiercel]

What, are we going for some Epileptic Trees here? Here goes:

While the rise of Hellfire and its potentially corruptive influence has attracted attention to Mephistopheles’s scheming, this is just a smokescreen. After all: “Hellfire”? The branding is too obvious, especially for an energy that isn’t intrinsically Evil, merely “fire hotter than fire.”

There is a more pernicious influence at work - a new form of energy more corruptive than mere “hotter fire.” Consider what the primary currency of Hell actually is:

Soul energy.

Also consider what form of energy is so protected that the gods are forbidden from even speaking of it, much less having anything to do with it?

Soul energy of the “unborn.”

But the so called “incarnum” takes soul energy - the primary currency of Hell itself - and makes it into a toy for mortals who want useful magic “items.” Sure, perhaps current incarnum soulmelds draw primarily on the soul energy of those who have lived before, but there are those who darkly whisper that this is a mere gateway drug to tapping into a source of energy the gods themselves are forbidden from — if it isn’t already....

By tempting mortals into a form of cannibalism that feeds on souls — previously incarnate, unborn, or otherwise — rather than merely flesh, the Lords of Hell have a more insidious inroad on the Prime Material than the too-obvious flash of Hellfire could ever provide.

Or rather, one particular Lord: for who has the power and guile to maneuver Mephistopheles into an overt, risky, potentially self-destructive course of action merely to provide a smokescreen for a greater scheme short of the Lord of the Ninth himself, Asmodeus?

As for the Sapphire Eidolon, an ineffably mysterious and not-at-all-suspicious dynamo of ultimate Law? Just one more microscopic cog in his catastrophic plan....