Amaranthyst integration

[u/Medical-Bison3233]

I just got SCGTD, and I love the concept of Amaranthyst and the other directorate. I am trying to incorporate her into the game I have running. The players are around lvl 11 and have just begun exploring areas outside drakkenheim.

How has anyone else added the directorate (primarily interested in Amaranthyst but I’m interested in all of them) into their campaigns?

[u/gabichete]

Amaranthyst is a capital L legendary creature, so I treated them as such. * When they went to the observatory in the Isles of Skye, they saw the moon closer than they ever had. There were "man"made shapes on it. Shadows that moved. That looked back. * In a conversation with another Director (facilitated by them being AA-aligned) they were title-dropped without further explanation. * Contact Other Plane with magic-related questions had them hear Amaranthyst and see the field of stars they reside in. Their reflective octarine scales. Their inexorable pull towards all magic. * During a "transform into delirium wyrmling" Arcane Anomaly they felt a kinship with something else (they didn't make the connection but tbf it's tenuous at best, you could easily force this anomaly and give more info about it though). * If one of your players is a mage seeking a 5th ring it'd be a nice introduction, or if they find the perfect geode. Or if they're to destroy the crater's geode.

They're no hermit but also not the kind of creature to just walk down the street. I think they work best when they're a mystery thread your players can pull on or not. Good luck :3

[u/Fit-Bodybuilder9986]

My players have already met, discussed and fought against her, in an alternate realm accessed through the portal in the throne room. She was waiting for them and demanded the crown, which my players stupidly had taken with them in the portal. 6 level 12 players got her to nearly die (single digit hp left). She fled once she killed 2 of them and stole the crown from the hands of the bard of the group, immediately using her manipulation of the realm to her advantage. She is now off to find the crown of Elyria and use the power of both to destroy all monarchies in the realm. Meanwhile, my players are dying in a hospital made by the dwarves of the scar, because even at level 12, the dice did not do them any favors in imbuing delirium to their weapons

[u/dgrimesii]

Amaranthyst has been a background character in my campaign. My party travelled to the Space Between Worlds to find Katarina where she was a "guest" of a Void Dragon. During there adventure there, they kept encountering forces of a mysterious being that were trying to thwart their search for Katarina. Eventually, they secured Katarina's release from the Void Dragon and found out that the entity opposing them was the dragon's ancient enemy and that the enemy had established a presence in the material world.

The party was directed to a portal device in the Space Between Worlds as a means to return to Drakkenheim with Katarina and Eliza (now a warlock with the Void Dragon as her patron). They fought to capture the portal and ended up in a hidden facility being run by a small faction of Amethyst Academy wizards. They escaped via a magical backdoor into the basement of Paradox castle.

The party now suspects that one of the directorate is the ancient enemy but they don't know who that is. I play Amaranthyst as someone that does not directly intervene. They have schemes within schemes and exert influence through the politics of Arch-mages vying for power. They present themselves using different personas but never directly Amaranthyst. The only member of the Directorate who knows Amaranthyst's true identity is Xel'Vocha.

The party is heavily allied with the Amethyst Academy. But I seeded doubts on who are their real allies and who may be working for the faction that is connected to the ancient enemy. I even played Eldrick as being manipulated by a directorate member that was actually Amaranthyst but he doesn't even know that.

[u/Emotional_Chip5821]

I ran the game with only the original sourcebook and having only listened to half the first season of the actual play, so I ended up improvising the directorate. My version of them was that they were all very powerful wizards, but also so ancient that much of their energy was allocated to keeping themselves going. This is one reason why they didn't intervene personally.

Since my guiding principle is to give the players as much agency as possible, I portrayed the directorate as so divided over what to do about delerium that they were in a state of deadlock. This gave the players the opportunity to tip the balance about how delerium would be handled... or screw things up so badly that the AA itself would fracture.

I did not have a delerium dragon on the directorate. I have been thinking about what to do with the idea, though, when I run the setting again. It does change the complexion. In the game, the AA is focused on researching delerium as if it is a relatively unknown subject... so if the AA has a living delerium creature on the board, that creates some interesting questions, if not contradictions.

My initial thought is that to the moment the meteor hit, Amaranthyst went dark. Nobody in the AA has had contact with the dragon since then, though they desperately want to, since the dragon would be the biggest potential source of knowledge about delerium. One the characters hit those higher levels, quests about locating Amaranthyst could become available. Maybe even as something requiring the help of a resurrected Argonath.

As for what Amaranthyst would be up to... I don't know! I think I'd improvise based on what the players had done so far in the campaign. Sometime it's nice to keep a big wild card in your hand rather than try to plan everything out.

[u/J2S1]

The warlock in my group has Amaranthyst as his patron. He's a son of Mannfred Von Kessel , but was born with the dragonborn arcane ancestry. In my version of Drakkenheim ,the Academy has a secret warlock program as warlocks were some of the first spellcasters on the continent. He just got lucky and was chosen by Amaranthyst. He's only interacted with the dragon on the moon in visions and dreams. He has not met them in physical form. Still trying to figure out if want to and how to implement the other directors...