Story and Lore of Altar of Malice

Any mention of the shissar war in The Deep and if they won or fled it?

I didn't think there was a war there, and if there was, they probably lost, considering I think there's only 1 shissar left there. if I remember right it was an alternate method of getting the item to traverse the Grey

The Deep? The Shissar enslaved the Thought Horror Overfiend, and used it to guard the tunnel entrance to the basement of Ssra. The rest of the Thought Horrors in The Deep defended their Overfiend. So to get to Ssra, you could either face the Overfiend (a raid, and not a gentle one) or get Enduring Breath and cross The Grey.

I just thought of something. Are we sure those living shissar are /properly/ living?

We've had multiple void and ethernere breaches. We've had a second nexus constructed in the ethernere. And then we have /chronomancy/ used to pull the moon back together, which implies at least a partial rewind through all of those events, all the way back to the moment before The Nexus was blown up. All in an instant, relatively. Plus, sitting where the Nexus was (or perhaps trapped inside it?) is now a source (or two) of power even greater than before.

Perhaps that conflux of things allowed the Shissar to reach back through time, and snatch their armies away from the Greenmist before it took them. Or let them reach into the Ethernere and Void, and bring them back.

During the fight at the end of the sig timeline, the shissar warriors come through /BADLY/ injured. Is it due to the portals, or due to still being recovering from whatever method brought them back before they used the portals?

Well, having hired Zun now, she confirms absolutely that the Akheva are enslaved, and apparently by magic. She broke free of the spell, and found that her fellow Akhevans are so messed up they can't even recognize her, so she's out for vengeance.

That basically cements that the Shissar are up to their oldschool tricks. Very, very powerful magic used to collect minions.

Which makes me wonder how they pulled that off. this adds even more problems because we know the Akheveans wouldn't attack the Shissar because of Xenophobia, and we know the Shissar wouldn't go after them cause of Xenophobia... so unless they both got blasted to Norrath and then the Shissar said 'oh look, those 4 armed guys are powerful..they'd make great slaves!' we got no reason or method that why these two races would meet.

The xenophobic nature of the two races is why they would be more likely to fight, not less.

I think before the gods left, the Shissar were too worried about Luclin to face the akhevans (since they were on Luclin's "home turf" as it were), and the Shissar were too powerful for the akhevans to take out without direct help from their goddess.

Once Luclin was out of the picture, I think the Shissar were able to overwhelm the akhevans.

Yeah, Xenophobes don't tend to be pure avoidance, they also tend to HATE. And the Shissar at the least have proven that they think of every single other species in existence as tools, slaves, or spell components...at best. The only time they got 'cooperative' is when they signed onto Rallos' first big war, and even that was just them /using a god/. They /used/ a god.

The shissar are nasty, treacherous, deadly creatures. And the Akhevans wouldn't have been able to make the first move really, since The Grey protected the shissar. Not only was it a vacuum, it was full of shissar golems and undead slaves as an additional line of defense, as well as traps. The only other way in was through The Deep, and that entrance was guarded by the Thought Horror Overfiend.

In fact, given what that thing can do to the minds of other creatures, I wouldn't be too surprised if the Akhevans had tried to strike via The Deep, and their current state is the result of that. Unless their really, really big dogs came out of Vex Thal to help, they'd stand no chance against the Overfiend, who's own mind was subverted by Emperor Ssra. The only other beings on the entire moon other than Luclin herself that could stand up to that thing are Lord Inquisitor Seru, who could shred it...but can't leave the Arx Fortis unless something has changed dramatically, and Valdanov Zevfeer, who can't be trusted at all. Maybe Grieg, if you gave him time to prepare, but Luclin turned him into a gibbering nutter trapped in a maze where hallucinations become reality and try to eat you.

Also, of those three, the Akhevans, without direct orders from Luclin, would work with...none of them. So they'd be reliant on support from Vex Thal, and if the Shissar had already started to move by that point, VT could very well have been sealed by magic, preventing the most powerful Akhevans from intervening in time.

If that turns out to be the rough chain of events, that would mean Zevfeer would be forced to hole up and fortify, because the Shissar are top-end necromancers, and even if he himself is powerful enough to shrug off their spells to control the undead, the rest of his Coterie likely are not. And Lord Inquisitor Seru would still be trapped in the Arx Fortis. Maybe, if Sanctus Seru fortified their defenses, they could hold out against a Shissar/Akhevan assault...maybe. Or they may all be packed into the Arx, effectively cowering under Lord Seru's shadow.

This is obviously conjecture, but overall, I suspect that the moon is a warzone now that it's reconstructed. If Shadowhaven, Shar Vhal, and Katta Castellum stand, they likely aren't in good shape. Katta especially, since if the Shissar are after Zevfeer, the closest supply of blood and 'new troops/member of the Coterie' is Katta Castellum.

Should we be able to get up there by any means other than through the temple, it'll probably be via Truespirit intervention again, as Shar Vhal has a strong connection there. Unless Grieg's got his mind back, and Luclin lets/makes him finish his spires so she can drag Norrathian assistance up to deal with the Shissar. If via the spires, that would drop us in Mons Letalis, since where The Nexus used to be is now...um...Kera and Theer. Not a good place to go, or someplace we should let the Shissar anywhere near.

In fact, thinking of that, we kinda have to go up there now. Even if the Shissar can't enslave them as minions, if they siphon off their power? Yeah, I suspect the combined power of Theer and Kera added to Emperor Ssra might even be able to destroy the Greenmist...which...ugh. That would explain them going active and daring to slither onto Norrath.

Thanks, Jorlak, for picking the worst possible place to put those two.

what I mean is that the Shissar were terrified to slither a scale beyond the Grey. That's how frightened they were of the Greenmist. the Akheveans wouldn't go near Ssra Temple or any other non native settlement with a ten foot pole. hell they had a civil war about just SPEAKING to the other races, much less the idea of actually meeting them. So how would these two races come in contact, much less give the Shissar the means to magically overpower them and enslave them. the THO I never saw anything that said the Shissar controlled it. it was more of a 'This thing is in the way, it's big, nasty..but it's also guarding us against anyone that might sneak in, so we'll leave it there. might as well leave it alone.' the Shissar don't have thier calendar anymore, they had no means to know when/if the gods left, no reason to think the Greenmist wasn't a threat.

there's literally no viable reason for the Shissar and the Akheveans to ever come in contact with each other in the canon of the EQ realm that is prior to the Shattering. and even if Jorlak's chornomancy put live Shissar on the moon (ie set it back to when they first arrived) the STILL have no reason to deal with the Akheveans, as thier first order of business was probably remaking the Grey. not to mention, the Grimshale Island IS the section of Luclin the Temple was on, and Jorlak specifically states he couldn't move any of those peices back up to the moon, so how are the Shissar able to survive with the area of land they had teleported to is missing.

the only thing I can think of is that maybe the huge mass that's by Tim Deep might have had the Akheveans, or onf of the other large chuckes did, and that's how they got in contact with the Shissar, exploring to try to find a way back, and the Shissar here snared them. but if that is a bit of a stretch considering the locations of the fallen peices of Luclin.

I've already given a plausible explanation of why the Shissar would become active. They know the major flags in the End of Days prophecy and they used them to plot a way to survive. When the Greenmist attacked, they activated their plan to save the Emporer and his immediate supporters. Then they made sure the Greenmist couldn't touch them and waited for the Council of the Gods where they would withdraw their influence.

Several hundred years later they could move out of The Grey with no fear that the Greenmist or Cazic would come after them. That gave them time to prepare for the Shattering and avoiding the destruction of both Luclin and (potentially) Norrath. That also gave them a chance to set up a contingency plan incase Norrath managed to avoid destruction. Sending the immortal Akhevah to Norrath makes some sense once the Shissar control them. The grimlings make less sense than the Centi would of considering how many centi worked directly for the Akhevah and the grimlings just happened to live near by.

Saying that the Shissar don't know the major events on the Calendar just because they don't possess it is like saying a researcher can't remember his own thesis because he doesn't have his notes. They might not remember every little detail, but I think since they build the calendar they would have a fairly good idea of what major events it entailed. Especially since portions of the prophecy had been deciphered from just fragments of the calendar.

From what we know the Shissar had 200-300 years to subjugate Luclin between the time the gods left and the moon blew up. Who knows what they could and couldn't accomplish?

Aren't the Gods back now though? We have shard zones, deity blessings/miracles, avatars of the Gods, the whole Rallos Zek pushing Drunder into Norrath thing. Why are they suddenly not afraid that Cazic will use the Greenmist again?

That is a question I'd like answered too.

I seriously am coming to think that the reason they aren't afraid of the Greenmist is because of Kodlak and his chronomancy. In a way, the Shissar have had since Luclin exploded/unexploded to tap Kerafrym and Theer's power. And as I said, that power, combined with Emperor Ssra's own power, may well be enough to hold off or destroy the Greenmist.

Which would explain CT activating the Allu'thoa (who turned out to be unable to interpret the vision he sent correctly) instead of just misting the temple. The Greenmist may well be sealed away, or even destroyed, and unable to be deployed (unless it could be propagated from Rile's old sword, since it has the stuff forged into it, thus the name.)

Your not forgetting that the Greenmist showed up during the Battle of Defiance and was almost single handedly responsible for the defeat of not just the Second Rallosian Army, but also the destruction of the Second Rallosian Empire? The only survivors are a few Ogres that now desperately worship Cazic in the hopes that the Greenmist in their blood doesn't kill them, and the Ogres that were not in the Rallosian Army (i.e. the population in Freeport, Neriak and a few obscure locations that the PC ogres washed up from).

The bits of residue in the Greenmist blade are from back when the Shissar were originally "destroyed" by the Greenmist.

me and Merril basically have a difference in how accurate the Shissar were of the symbols in their Calendar. Just because they found the symbols and put them in the order that is marked in the Calendar, doesn't mean they knew exactly what all the symbols meant, or that they got them right. I use the idea that the Greenmist completely blindsided them. it's made pretty plain that it drove them into a panic, adn they fled to the Temple and it got zapped to Luclin, and they were so terrified that the Greenmist coudl follow they erected the Grey and refused to set a scale past it's border. to the point that they used their dead as undead minions to patrol it.

A race bent on dominion, that was scared and cowering in a vaccum filled snowglobe. That doesn't tell me that they 'knew it was coming and had planned accordingly' and then they left the Calendar behind. the most important artifact in their entire culture/empire, and they left it there? that screams of 'we paniced and fled blindly as fast as we could'.

The Shissar basically, since they worship none of the Pantheon, thus had no one to 'know/feel' the absence of the gods, nor did it have any effect on Luclin (until the Shattering) and the Shissar had no means of knowing of the attack on the Nexus because again, they won't set foot beyond the Grey for fear of the Greenmist.

there's no reason for the Shissar to leave the grey, they had no way to know if CT was still pissed or anything. WE'll just have to hope they reveal to us at some point how the Shissar got involved with the Akheveans and hope that it's not blindingly retconned or out of character for either of the races,

Not forgetting that at all. Even in the chronomantic time-warp, Kera and Theer wouldn't have been in there long enough for Ssra to siphon them and do something to the greenmist at a point in time to cause a paradox on it.

But now, we've stuck /two/ anti-deity weapons inside the moon, putting them in close proximity to the freaking Shissar. Kodlak did not think what he was doing through.

I'd say that the reason dragonkind didn't use chronomancy to change their greatest losses in history is because there's side-effects, like merged timelines. So using Chronomancy to reconstruct the moon of Luclin around Kera and Theer as a prison was likely a hasty and relatively foolish choice. Would have been wiser, if wanting to follow that basic plan, to use Wizardry or Elementalism (raw magic and kinetic force, and fire as sort of a welding torch, or earth and air elementals simply pushing it all back around them). But I'm guessing they didn't have access to powerful enough versions of that, nor did they have real Geomantic power...so they kludged it with Chronomancy, and may very well have made things worse.

It wasn't really all that planned out. Kodlak was there and he got inspired by the calendar and the moon shape to throw them up to Luclin and form the broken shell of the moon around them. Technically speaking nobody was expecting anything to be "alive" up there (well, except us lore junkies who know about indestructible Akevah) but nobody could did predict what actually happened.

Considering that the alternative available to Chronomancy was to throw Kera and Theer through time this was a much better alternative. At least we know where they are and the same heros that challenged Kera before are still available. Though it would of amused me to no end to hear that Kera and Theer were transported into the Farasian Nexus about 200 years ago and that noise we hear coming from inside of it is them still battling.

First, undead aren't safe from the Greenmist. It eats away every trace. The vacuum was the defense against the Greenmist, not the undead patrolling it looking for lesser threats.

Second, just because you know an event is coming doesn't mean you know exactly what is going to happen. The Greenmist attacking the Shissar is the first known appearance of the Greenmist. There was a plan to save the Emperor and his closest advisors, or at least there was a very convenient way to transport his temple to Luclin when it happened. The rest of the Shissar panicked because there was no plan to save them. And if you knew what the Greenmist was capable of you'd erect any kind of defense you think might work because Cazic isn't going to forgive you.

And going to Luclin probably was a panic move. After all, what kind of defense is going to Luclin from the Greenmist? None. It was probably a move to buy time while they erected a real defense. If they knew what the greenmist was like they could of erected the Grey on Norrath and not had to plan for the Shattering. As it was, I see everything after that as making the best of the situation.

I'm a bit confused though. What benefit would the Shissar of had if they brought the calendar with them? Assume they knew enough of the prophecy and they actually put it together. Wouldn't the knowledge be enough? Actually, wouldn't it be more important to them to leave it behind as a clue so other races could do the work of saving Norrath while they planned for the worst case possible? Or would an extra 8000 years of studying the planar runes teach them enough to save Norrath all by themselves? And would they want to?

The pantheon withdrawing their influence from Norrath and closing all portals to the Planes of Power had to leave signs that the Shissar could of detected. These were masters of Planar magic before most races could use magic. Being suddenly cut off (or massively restricted) from Planar power would of been a sign they could of detected.

So yeah, the two of us have very different opinions on this topic. Neither of us are more "correct" since we're basing it all off the same available lore. I just like to think mine fits what is happening better. Though the superbuff Shissar soldiers stretches credibility a lot farther than I'm willing to go. I mean, really? I want explanations as badly as everybody else.

well the weapons aren't on Luclin. Aeteok(soulfire) and Exonus (claymore) are still on norrath, in the hands of their respective owners. and I seriously doubt the Shissar would be able to get near Kera and Theer mid combat and not get vaporized.

Though as to the reason to bring the calendar, it could be that A) we got blindsided with the Greenmist, lets see where that fits in/plan accordingly for future events, and B) don't let the 'lesser' races get their hands on it and be able to plan for the events in it that can muck up our own plans.

and I don't think they noticed the cut of of planar magic because on Luclin they were completely obsessed with Necromancy as a means to keep themselves 'functioning' I suppose as time/lack of resources started killing them off. liching, turning themselves into lesser undead, ect. It seemed like once they got to the moon, it was 'we don't leave the grey for fear of the Greenmist, and we can't go home cause of the greenmist, lets make the best of what we got and just stay alive without drawing too much attention'. they certainly didn't want to do anything that might register on CT's radar that the Greenmist didn't get the entire job done.

I think it safe to say WHAT THE HECK IS THE GAME COMPANY THINKING?!? Why name an expansion after a minor 'issue' that we only tackled as a possible introduction to what's coming in the next expansion when this expansion is CLEARLY focused on how the Far Seas company got mixed up with the Shissar attempting to return and/or invade Norrath with an army. Can't we just named this stupid expansion oh idk, Rise of the Shissar or Secrets of Luclin?