Howdy folks! Today we'll be talking about Salathiss - his goals, how he plans to achieve them, and what resources he has to do so. We'll save actual response teams / encounters for a future article.
Who is Salathiss?
Salathiss has a pretty fun backstory in the book - a mutant in a culture that values purity, Salathiss turned self-loathing into self-discovery, and used his knack for turning his body into useful tools and weapons to single-mindedly prove himself worthy of his people. He has profound empathy for "warmbloods", enabling him to better understand them and thus destroy them. This feels very Ender's Game to me ("In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him."). Now, he is getting a bit too deep into the Magistrate Mayor's head, to the extent that it's worrying his subordinates.
It's a bit less clear what he's actually trying to do, however. Here's what we do know.
In his first successful assignment, "Salathiss corrupted the human village from within and left it a place of confusion and paranoia" (page 92). He was originally at the Magaambya to get the Vesicant Egg, mistaking it for a magical snake egg and hoping to unlock its power to earn greater prestige for himself. When that plot was foiled in Chapter 1, "he realize[d] he might have more to gain from impersonating one of Nantambu’s nine influential magistrate-mayors" (92), first in order to get the egg and then for the sake of power more broadly.
We also know that historically, Serpentfolk society was a Magocratic Empire, and that the Empire's descendants seek arcane dominance and a return to power.
His current broad goal, then, is to destabilize Nantambu in order to destroy the Magaambya (a potential magical rival) and plunder its arcane secrets. In order to do that, we'll say that he seeks to topple Froglegs and take over her businesses while also continuing to infiltrate and gain power from the government of Nantambu. He originally thought the egg might be the key to his plan, and that his mission might be accomplished by ordinary stealth and guile, but upon the discovery of his agents he determined that a more insidious approach might be necessary.
However, there is a war in his mind between his own goals (destabilize Nantambu in order to control it) with Asanda's (care for the city and its people) that causes no small amount of erraticism, leading his subordinates to grow increasingly frustrated with his command.
Enacting His Plan
Gang War
In order to destabilize Nantambu and gain control over it, Salathiss seeks to dethrone Froglegs and take over her position as crimelord while cementing his control over the government. He does this in three main ways:
- His coil spies perform violent crimes while disguised as minions of Froglegs. This not only turns public opinion against her (she had previously kept a pretty tight leash on her people, and only very rarely sanctioned violence in order to keep the pressure off), but also causes her to violently punish those the spies impersonated, killing some and brutalizing others before learning of the deception. This not only makes her increasingly distrustful, but also damages the loyalty of her people.
- In response, Asanda/Salathiss has the Bell-Ringers crack down on Froglegs' activities, although he has his own agents in place to make sure that her infrastructure isn't destroyed, simply removed from her control so that he can take over later.
- Finally, he occasionally has his coil spies directly attack Froglegs' forces where he things a more brutal hand is required than he can count on the Bell-Ringers for.
While Froglegs is definitely fooled for a while, thinking her subordinates have taken after Reth and gone rogue, she eventually beats enough of her people to death while they protest their innocence that she realizes something else must be going on here. Once she realizes there is someone else at play, she has her people try to ambush serpentfolk agents, ideally capturing them but being pretty okay with killing them as well.
As Salathiss grows increasingly erratic and focused on the legal side of things, his lieutenant Syrith takes over a lot of the underworld element, often without his knowledge.
Meeting the Party
In response to this escalating violence, if the party are consistently opposing Froglegs, Asanda/Salathiss might deputize the party and feed them clues about Froglegs' activities, hoping to have them do his dirty work for him while he scooped up all her holdings in the aftermath.
On the other hand, if the party runs afoul of the law in a major way or otherwise aggravates Asanda/Salathiss, he will paint them as Public Enemy Number One, Spiderman style. This is how it went down in my game, as the party killed some crooked Bell-Ringers sent by Froglegs to interrogate and/or kill them and then fled to one of their home towns to wait for the heat to die down. In their absence, he's made sure that they become known as collaborators with Froglegs instead, instruments of her tyranny and another reason she must be taken down.
Whichever option ends up making the most sense given the actions of the players, the party should meet both Magistrate-Mayor Asanda and Salathiss pretending to be him well before the final confrontation. I'd say after 3-6 months of repairs and renovations, Asanda/Salathiss comes out of hiding and begins pursuing Froglegs more openly, arguing that all the chaos and disrepair is her doing and that only stopping her will restore the city.
Destroying the Magaambya
Once Salathiss has control of the government and a solid foothold in the Underworld, he will begin his siege upon the Magaambya. This begins very indirectly - egging on people like Fire Pot Ubano who have a grievance with the school (Song Wind 38), setting loose drakes near the school (43), spreading rumors about the school (focused primarily on things that the party did that were either reckless or caused collateral damage), and convincing merchants to cancel contracts with the school to create a sort of economic siege.
Once he has full control of the underworld (i.e. Froglegs is defeated), he will begin moving more openly, staging criminal actions supposedly perpetrated by members of the school (having them be found near dead bodies, having valuable stolen goods be found in their locales, browbeating merchants into telling false stories of how teachers abused their status for special privileges, or having his serpentfolk pretend to be those merchants), removing key members of its infrastructure through murder or scandal (he definitely needs High Mage Oyamba exiled from the city, and ideally Teacher Janatimo as well as his big focus is on info gathering), and eventually building up the atrocities to the point that a violent mob will form (led by his coil spies) and lay waste to the school. Or if that fails, he'll just have either city officials do it in a somewhat official capacity (Bell-Ringers and Tempest-Sun Warriors that are not mages) or have his own underworld agents do it in a very unofficial capacity.
Once he has the Magaambya under his control, he will raid it for any Arcane knowledge and artifacts that might be valuable and salt the earth behind him as he burns the school to the ground and returns to his people triumphant once more! It's pretty unlikely the party will let things get this far, but it can be helpful to know his end goals.
Discovering the Deception
There are a few different ways that the party might uncover the truth: that Salathiss is merely impersonating Asanda. The first is
There are a few clues that might lead the party to realize that Salathiss is merely impersonating Asanda:
- Salathiss will spontaneously say things that seem to contradict Asanda's stated goals (as things get worse, he might say them back to back without realizing)
- "The Magaambya must be destroyed!" (Asanda went to the Magaambya, and though he never graduated and left after over a year he loves it dearly and remembers that time fondly - he would instead seek to protect the school)
- "Froglegs must die!" (all his life Asanda has preached nonviolence and community restitution over harsh punishments - he would instead say that she must be brought to trial)
- "Silence fools!" or other harsh reproach (Asanda is known to be well-mannered and soft-spoken, as much out of pragmatism as compassion)
- Salathiss is a master of Arcane Magic (Asanda only ever had a basic aptitude for Primal magic)
- Casting obvious Arcane spells (such as any telepathy spell or other mental magic, or anything relating to constructs/tech stuff as opposed to nature)
- Remember, Arcane is Matter/Mind, whereas Primal is Life/Matter, so any Mind-based spells are Arcane only, and any Life-based spells are Primal only
- Failure to perform simple Primal spells even when appropriate (such as heal)
- Casting magic far too powerful (Asanda did not graduate the Magaambya, he learned a bit and then found his calling elsewhere)
- The party might notice discrepancies in his behavior
- DC 22 - he often speaks very hesitantly (Critical Success - as if he was unfamiliar with his body and over-thinking the sounds he was making)
- If the party met him in Book 1, he does not recall this meeting
- Salathiss's body might spontaneously glitch out (Song Wind 92)
- DC 25 to notice something relatively subtle (i.e. his eyes or skin briefly seem to change color), DC 20 to notice something more obvious like a tail poking out of his clothes, or automatically notice something even more obvious depending on how bad its gotten
There are many ways the party might learn this information, including talking with Asanda directly, talking with people that knew him, or from dossiers/reports/notes from people they trust. Here are threethat I prepared for my players from High Sun Mage Oyamba, from their fellow students respectively, and from Teacher Ot. Note that a lot of the details in this are specific to the way that my campaign ended up (the party killed some Bell Ringers that had been working for Froglegs and fled the city, receiving these notes upon returning), and won't work in every game, but feel free to take inspiration from these in crafting your own!
That's all for this week folks - next time we'll be taking a closer look at the mechanical side of Salathiss's forces, and what foes the party might face!
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