The mysterious El-Koth of Hazlan

[tomokaicho]

The El-Koth of Hazlan, from Gazetteer Volume 1.



The entry for El-Koth in the Mistpedia.

I made a major discovery. Buried amidst the portraits are 3.5e stats for the El-Koth by Chris Nichols, who worked on the gazetteer.

What else do we know about the El-Koth?

[Rock of the Fraternity]

Wow! What a find...

But I can see why it was omitted from the Gazetteers. "Nothing is scarier than the unknown and unseen".

[Mephisto of the FoS]

The El-Koth of Hazlan, from Gazetteer Volume 1.



The entry for El-Koth in the Mistpedia.

I made a major discovery. Buried amidst the portraits are 3.5e stats for the El-Koth by Chris Nichols, who worked on the gazetteer.

What else do we know about the El-Koth?

Can't resist thinking of an ultra intelligent version of Ridley Scott's Alien, good thing they are extinct, although their skeletons are menacing too. I wonder what kind of building structures they had...

[Rock of the Fraternity]

Extinct... Yeah. Of course they're extinct. Uh-huh. Yup. No stasis pods here...

[Wolfglide of the Fraternity]

From reading the stat block, I am getting a clear reference to the Elder Things of Lovecraft's Mythos.

Stasis pods would be more in line with the technology of the Great Race of Yith. However, adding Yithian lore to the El-Koth could make them even more interesting. Suppose that the El-Koth minds are still alive, but kept elsewhere. Perhaps another plane, perhaps the distant future or past, or perhaps some giant battery deep below Hazlan. Procedures to turn beings into El-Koth weren't reproduction, they were operations to make suitable bodies for extant El-Koth consciousnesses.

Fearing some cataclysm, the El-Koth abandoned all of their bodies a long time ago, and let them rot. Now, there are no suitable bodies for them (they need that 3 brain arrangement), but their exoskeletons are still about. When necromancers animate them, the futile attempts of El-Koth minds to repossess those shells causes interference that can break the necromancer's control.

Dread Possibility: The Return of the El-Koth
There are reports of a strange, deranged pair of twins wandering the Core. They are associated with bizarre mutilations; attempts to graft additional brain matter into a single being. Recently, however, they have begun to search for something---someone. In reality, these twins are dvati (Dragon Magazine 271 page 81 (2E) or Dragon Compendium page 14 (3.xE)), beings which have a single soul and mind between two separate bodies. An El-Koth consciousness has partially forced itself into the dvati (like a three fingered hand in a two-fingered glove), but it needs a better vessel to properly prepare for returning its brethren to the world. To that end, it hunts a synad (Complete Psionic page 139), a being with three minds in a single body. If it can catch and inhabit the synad, it will be able to operate with full functionality, and perhaps soon after it will be able to successfully transform other beings into true El-Koth receptacles.

[Rock of the Fraternity]

Very nice and chilling!

[Alastor]

Dread Possibility: The Return of the El-Koth
There are reports of a strange, deranged pair of twins wandering the Core. They are associated with bizarre mutilations; attempts to graft additional brain matter into a single being. Recently, however, they have begun to search for something---someone. In reality, these twins are dvati (Dragon Magazine 271 page 81 (2E) or Dragon Compendium page 14 (3.xE)), beings which have a single soul and mind between two separate bodies. An El-Koth consciousness has partially forced itself into the dvati (like a three fingered hand in a two-fingered glove), but it needs a better vessel to properly prepare for returning its brethren to the world. To that end, it hunts a synad (Complete Psionic page 139), a being with three minds in a single body. If it can catch and inhabit the synad, it will be able to operate with full functionality, and perhaps soon after it will be able to successfully transform other beings into true El-Koth receptacles.

The dvati remind me a bit of the monastery of Havern in Quoth the Raven #18 ("More Hidden Places") - that article mentions that the children of monastery's inhabitants and humans are beings with one soul in two bodies. This could be the origin of the dvati in the dread possibility (or of a dvati PC).

I wonder if Jack the Reaper had this race in mind when he wrote the article.

[Drinnik Shoehorn]

From reading the stat block, I am getting a clear reference to the Elder Things of Lovecraft's Mythos.

Stasis pods would be more in line with the technology of the Great Race of Yith. However, adding Yithian lore to the El-Koth could make them even more interesting. Suppose that the El-Koth minds are still alive, but kept elsewhere. Perhaps another plane, perhaps the distant future or past, or perhaps some giant battery deep below Hazlan. Procedures to turn beings into El-Koth weren't reproduction, they were operations to make suitable bodies for extant El-Koth consciousnesses.

Fearing some cataclysm, the El-Koth abandoned all of their bodies a long time ago, and let them rot. Now, there are no suitable bodies for them (they need that 3 brain arrangement), but their exoskeletons are still about. When necromancers animate them, the futile attempts of El-Koth minds to repossess those shells causes interference that can break the necromancer's control.

Dread Possibility: The Return of the El-Koth
There are reports of a strange, deranged pair of twins wandering the Core. They are associated with bizarre mutilations; attempts to graft additional brain matter into a single being. Recently, however, they have begun to search for something---someone. In reality, these twins are dvati (Dragon Magazine 271 page 81 (2E) or Dragon Compendium page 14 (3.xE)), beings which have a single soul and mind between two separate bodies. An El-Koth consciousness has partially forced itself into the dvati (like a three fingered hand in a two-fingered glove), but it needs a better vessel to properly prepare for returning its brethren to the world. To that end, it hunts a synad (Complete Psionic page 139), a being with three minds in a single body. If it can catch and inhabit the synad, it will be able to operate with full functionality, and perhaps soon after it will be able to successfully transform other beings into true El-Koth receptacles.

What if some of the minds got caught up in Bluetspur when it was a neighbouring domain, taking over some of the broken ones and illithids?

[DeepShadow of FoS]

In the Dominia article, I had a member of Ward Zero who was driven mad by the El Koth Lodestone, and I planned to have some drug interactions that would enhance the spellcasting powers that resulted. It's not hard to see a cult growing around the stone itself, forcing people to touch the stone and then giving them the drugs.

In the case of the El Koth Skeleton, I wonder if this was apologetics for the embarrassing Insectoid Skeleton entry from the 2E RL books.