Zora's fiery circlet and the Cinder Kings 9 pointed crown

We are nearing the end of our campaign and some of my players are really fascinated by some of the open ended questions in the book.

Specifically, the Lorekeeper in my campaign is really intent on uncovering how it fits together with a 10 pointed crown of fire that used to be in Dar, the Cinder King has a 9 pointed crown and Zora has a fiery circlet with a point (and also broke Dar).

Last session I covered my ass by saying that Zora would tell the Loremaster the story if they got all the way to Skydagger (just fought their way into Fort Calisco), so inciting him to give 110% to get there.

How have you explained these meta plot threads in your campaigns?

I think it would be cool if there was some relationship between Zora and the Cinder King (Zora is said to be very old in the book) and sort of leaning into the Lady in the Black Company story arc maybe? Maybe they are married or Zora is the mother of the Cinder King or something?

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Looking at the hints, it feels as if the Cinder King is old sins come back to haunt the East - and Zora in particular.

Heā€™s tied to the cursed land of Dar, and sheā€™s the one who broke Dar in the Godswar - injuring the god as well as their Chosen.

ā€˜Brokeā€™ is an interesting word in that context, as ā€œBrokenā€ are generally a horrible new concept for the Chosen, arenā€™t they?

So perhaps the price of that victory may have been much higher than it seemed at the time.

There has been previous discussion on this lore before.

Two things have been precised by the author (IIRC):

  • The ā€œbrokeā€ in ā€œZora broke Darā€ has no relation to the use of the verb in ā€œBrokenā€. Just a convenient verb to describe succinctly what happened (while letting a lot of space to playersā€™ imagination)

  • The Cinder King is in fact a Chose of an old Dar God.

Probably these details will officially appear in a future campaign. And they square with whatā€™s already in the book. But since they are not in the book until now, you can go with it or find another explanation at your table of what happened.

I really like that it could be some bad stuff that is back to hunt Zora.

In my campaign we played the Osyingra mission in Barrak mines and I hinted heavily at that Zora might not be the hero everyone thinks she is, when she and Osyingra went and defeated the Last Emperor.

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Thatā€™s what I did with our Oysingra mission, also. The QM hasnā€™t trusted Zora since the beginning. But he has kept his reservations to himself, since he canā€™t prove anything yet (and since the Legion is a ā€œdie heroically in the glorious service of our savior Zoraā€ kind of organization since Ettenmarkā€¦). Heā€™s certain the mixed results of the Fire-Hearts experiment he and the Legionā€™s alchemists cooked up, as a counter to Renderā€™s Heartless, are proof she isnā€™t the pure-and-stainless hero everyone else thinks she is.

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