Epic Path: Avatar of the Goddess
[This is my brainstorm of home-brewing a new Epic Path that fits with Langlicia, but at the same time make it generic and more useful by other character types.]
Avatar of the Goddess
You have a connection to the Great Mother Goddess Thylea which causes her to reach out to you so that she can use you as vessel for carrying out her will, but only if she deems you worthy.
For players who love: The trials of Heracles, Harry Potter
Restrictions: Must have a direct class- or race-based connection to the Goddess Thylea. For example: either (1) a Cleric or Warlock whose deity/patron is Thylea, (2) a Sorcerer with lineage that can be traced back to Thylea and Kentimane, or (3) any character whose race is Thylean Nymph or Satyr.
Adventure Hook: As the time of the end of the truce nears, Thylea wishes to take an increasingly active role is resolving the conflict between the Titans and the Mortals.
Heroic Tasks
[The intention here is that all of these events are things that bring the player closer to and/or in contact with Thylea. These are things we'd have to workshop but I'm listing some ideas here in addition to things we've already done. If there are other upcoming events in the module that could be used here that I don't know about, that also totally works for me.]
- Make contact with the Oracle, who recognizes you and bids you join her collection of "chosen" ones
- Learn about the conflict in detail from at least three different sources
- Make a pilgrimage to the Great Tree on the island of the Golden Heart in the Cerulean Gulf
- Make direct, physical contact with Kentimane or his avatar
- In the event that another spellcaster uses the Divination or Commune spell to contact Thylea close to you, answer the call as Her voice to this spellcaster
[Mostly I just see this an an interesting role-playing event / plot-twist.]
Divine Blessing
Blessing of the Goddess. Once per long rest, you can ritually cast certain Divination spells without material components and without expending a spell slot, even if you are not of a class that would otherwise be able to cast the spell. Your character level must be high enough to be able to cast the given spell as if you were the appropriate spellcaster class.
Those spells are: Commune, Commune with Nature, Divination, Speak with Animals.
[Note: I chose these spells because they were both Divination School and tagged Ritual, plus they all generally are used for obtaining knowledge. There may be others that make sense but are not Ritual like Legend Lore, Clairvoyance, Locate Object/Creature, etc. The list shouldn't be very long anyway.]
Narrative Path
...and back to Langlicia in particular.
Again, this is just an idea that I'm still playing with. Since OotD has the thing where you can build up "Fame" to the point where you can eventually ascend to godhood, I'm trying to craft an alternate version of this for Langlicia that makes sense in the context of her character and her origins. Since she'll never ascend to godhood in the "conventional" sense, because she'd actively avoid Fame and not take the Oath of Fellowship (or if so, want to keep it secret from outsiders). Instead she'll slowly learn over time that she, in effect, is chosen (either from birth or gradually as events progress) to be the eyes, ears, voice, mind, and will of Thylea.
Ultimately, the story begins with her being an otherwise ordinary nymph created for the purpose of learning about and understanding the conflict between the Titans and the mortals. As the story progresses, she accomplishes "Heroic Tasks" as well as other special events that strengthen her connection to the goddess Thylea.
What she doesn't know at the outset is that the source of her purpose in life do not come from the spirits of the skies but rather from the mind of Thylea herself.
In the end, she comes to realize that she really is the goddess Thylea, without any godly powers (other than the Divine Blessing) but with the personality and limited memories of Thylea. (An alternate version of this idea is that as the end of the truce approaches, the goddess becomes increasingly concerned with the situation and so she increasingly imposes herself onto Langlicia as a means of taking direct action.) This makes her comparable to the Oracle Versi as a Thylean nymph with a unique divine connection.
This would ultimately play out in a few ways.
1) She will increasingly view Thylea's relationships with others (particularly Kentimane, Sydon, Lutheria, the other nymphs, and Berrain) as her own. She will feel love for all of them as her husband / children / grandchildren.
2) She will actively try to dissuade the the party from killing Sydon and Lutheria, her children.
3) The party would reach a point where she gives Thylea's blessing to defeat Sydon and Lutheria (but still not want them killed).
4) If/when Sydon is defeated, she'll want to be with him in his final moments, to tell him that he loves and forgives him, but could not allow him to continue down this path any longer.
5) The realization "I am Thylea" will be the trigger for the completion of the Epic Path and the granting of the Divine Blessing.
Some of this I've already role-played in bits and pieces, but this is the general trajectory where I imagine her story going (with the understanding that I don't really know the future story of OotD, and so there may be things about this that wouldn't work or need to change to fit that story).
What do you think? Is this, or something akin to it, something we can do?