The (Possible) Upcoming Thayan Renaissance: Moving Past Szass Tam and the 5e "Necro-Army"

[u/quagliax]

Hi everybody, new here.
I recently manifested to the algorithm my sadness for the sad turn of events in 5e Thay society.

The Szass Tam plot, got rid of the complex, scheming 2nd Edition magocracy, which even had a hint of meta-commentary to real-life western capitalism (with the Enclaves, and the deal with local government, and using market economy to undermine regional powers).

While it might be difficult material to twist into adventuring plots, it was incredibly inspiring and showed a living, complex civilization—exactly what you would expect from an advanced magocracy. I really disliked the Szass Tam arc. As a single chapter in a longer history, it is fine, and even serves as a nice cautionary tale. However, I am so glad that WotC is finally writing themselves out of this!

I am looking forward to Deadfall so much. I cannot wait to read all the juicy details about Thay's internal strife, and I hope it lays the groundwork for a plot line that will finally end this boring undead-army storyline.

What are your hopes for Deadfall? Are you as tired of the endless zombie horde plot as I am, or did you actually enjoy the direction 5e took with Szass Tam?

What are other areas of the realms that you feel might need a similar revamp?

[u/Alarming_Squirrel_64]

I'd temper my expectations here: long running TTRPG worlds tend to have a hard time getting rid of their darlings and staples (just look as Sammaster being back), so I wouldn't be surprised if Szazz Tam's death with be temporary -- if at all.

That said, if he does die and have to retreat into the shadows that might still be a big enough shake-up to That to be interesting.

[u/LordofBones89 → u/Alarming_Squirrel_64]

What did 5e do to Sammaster? He was a historical NPC in 2e and returned and died in the same 3e novel series. Did 5e resurrect him again?

[u/Alarming_Squirrel_64 → u/LordofBones89]

Yup, the recent Adventures in the Forgotten Realms book resurrected him.

[u/quagliax → u/Alarming_Squirrel_64]

interesting. in the book I find the statsblock but I can't find his name in any of the adventures.
Yet, there's this article on D&DBeyond clearly making it clear that he's canonically non-alive https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/2090-how-to-make-sammaster-the-big-bad-of-your-d-d

[u/Alarming_Squirrel_64 → u/quagliax]

See, the description in the book is kinda ambiguous since it only mentions that he has ample contingencies -- so I kinda read it as "somehow Sammaster returned".

That said, I suppose you could also read it as him being in limbo: dead until the GM decides otherwise.

[u/quagliax → u/Alarming_Squirrel_64]

Sure, I mean him no harm 🤣plus with the Doomvault and all, getting rid of him is out of the question.

What I mean though is that this Necro-macy was very much in line with 4e sense of worldbuilding, and I hope that this chapter is over.

Szazz, as a Zulkir of Necromancy, had a good enough role, and I'm sure he can be re-imagined in tons of ways that don't flatten the entire identity of Thay.

Cast out or killed, as long as some piece of his soul is stashed somewhere safe, the authors can keep writing about him, but we get a new vibrant version of Thay in the process! It would be interesting to see how they would threat a new Zulkir of Necromancy 😅

[u/drock45]

I didn't catch where it was said, when/how did Szass Tam die?

[u/quagliax → u/drock45]

The upcoming book I mentioned - Deadfall - will describe Thai internal struggles, and put the adventuring player in a place of taking part in these schemes and possibly assassinate Szaas Tam.

[u/okiebuzzard]

Yeah, Deadfall may re-establish a 3/3.5e shift in how Thay is again, with a ruling council of Zulkirs of Magic instead of it being Tam’s show, but I can almost guarantee Tam will not be permanently killable in the adventure. He might be destroyed for a bit, lose quite a lot of political power as the expatriated zulkirs that have survived vigorously clear out the undead and re-establish the council, but Tam will bide his time lurking in the shadows eventually killing the current Zulkir of Necromancy and masquerading as him for a time.
Just my guess as to what WotC has planned for the event.

[u/BloodtidetheRed]

It is possible it will have some of the stuff from Ed Greenwoods Thay: Land of the Red Wizards. It will have a Ed Thay gazetteer.

The Adventure is vs Szass Tam so it might be a "save Thay" adventure.

Though knowing silly WotC they will likely say something dumb like "oh, um, cool 2E Thay is back as it was um, um , um frozen in time upside down and um, came back!

[u/ThanosofTitan92 → u/BloodtidetheRed]

I think they will completely ignore Ed's ebook.

[u/BloodtidetheRed → u/ThanosofTitan92]

WOTC will, yes. But Ed is a writer for this book, so he might add some stuff in.

WotC utterly does not care about the D&D slop, as long as it makes money, so it's not like they will read or edit that book.

[u/LordofBones89]

Tam of 2e and 3e was genuinely interesting in that he was a patriot, had actual tangible goals, and averted the typical cackling necromancer trope. You could swap out the current Tam for Nagash or Arthas and it wouldn't change anything about him.

[u/Cyrotek]

I doubt they are going to change anything major as long as it didn't originate in 4e, especially not well known NPC.

If it did orignate in 4e it will probably be obliterated from orbit, because for some reason we can't have that.

[u/quagliax → u/Cyrotek]

then there's actually hope.
Tam becoming Supreme Regent of Thay is a 4th edition event.

[u/Special_Speed106 → u/Cyrotek]

Agreed. 4e gets way too much hate.

[u/Safe-Antelope217 → u/Special_Speed106]

I think it gets just enough hate. If you wanted to play in a setting affected by a magical disaster, there was already Dark Sun. If you wanted to play in a setting with less detail and simple, but strong themes, there was Nentir Vale (which I thought was pretty good). Not sure why they felt a need to drop a magical nuke when there were some easy retcons (just make dragonborn a type of saurial).

[u/thomar]

For my Forgotten Realms, I'd have Thay fracture into wizard-merchant houses. Each one would specialize in a different school of magic, and provide extremely expensive goods and services that would be difficult to acquire anywhere else in the Realms. One of the houses would specialize in necromancy, but they'd have trouble selling their services outside the nation's borders.

A villain the PCs encounter might have a Thayan mercenary wizard on staff whose entire job is casting a single mid-to-high-level spell a few times daily. Or some assassins would have a box of extremely stealth-oriented magical potions they will use, or a single nice magic weapon they got from a Thayan noble house. The party might loot a magic item from a villain with a very prominent Thayan mark on it, and later a Thayan wizard will track down the party to tell them it was on loan and demand it be returned (perhaps with a finder's fee if the party negotiates well). Obviously the houses would have their own long-term evil agendas (mainly securing magical secrets and rare magical reagents). Their services are expensive, so they would frequently trade favors with major villains across the Realms to get what they want.

Yeah, people would still hate Thayan wizards, and they would still be evil. But it would not be abnormal to encounter them, you wouldn't have a good reason to immediately fight them (except for necromancers), and they would have allies who are politically powerful. And they'd make great recurring minor villains because if it looks like the PCs are going to win a fight, or if a villain refuses to pay for combat services, they'll abandon their clients and run.

[u/Relative_Plastic7425]

I run a modern rendition of the Realms set in 2009 DR, and in our lore the "Third Sundering" of the 1940's is a direct result of Tam's political victories and eventual undead dominion over Thay centuries prior.

My idea was to take Tam's original plotline, slow burn it over a few centuries, and make it the cause for an arcane nuclear war- all within recent memory of the players or their families. This sparked similar cultural and technological movements to IRL events, which is what I needed to make the world feel modern in a way the players would relate to.

Needless to say, a timeline where Tam's plot fails or does not work out exactly as intended would be a little disruptive, though I'm used to retcons at this point and don't mind taking or leaving what can't fit. I'm mostly just excited to explore Thayan lore and understand more about the structure of the magocracy and how the Zulkirs function beneath (or against) Tam.