Voaraghamanthar - The Dragon With The Greatest Secret in D&D

when we look at a map of the sword Coast it's very difficult not to fantasize about many of these locations since you know of course that every single little piece of this land has tons of lore written about them there is legit history on these places they appear in novels video games DND adventures and of course now even movies now one of the places that always catches people's eyes is right here the mirror of dead men it's such a dramatic name but it's fairly apt the swamp is filled with Undead monsters UNT powerful reptiles and if Legends are true even liches prowl these Waters the mirror appears to be cursed as well it doesn't matter how many times the cities of the north reroute the road so that it passes far away from the swamp the swamp always seems to catch up to just barely touch the road it never takes over the road it just always expands to just touch it of course with legendary locations such as these there's always the question of who or what rules it and what kind of power could such a being possess well before we get into it this is the last week for you to check out our fifth edition campaign Sans of Doom on Kickstarter in sense of doomed you get to explore the adventure in an open world format where you get to decide which missions to complete and which ones to ignore as a massive Undead Army slowly marches through the desert in a collision course towards a capital city players will only have so much time before the great Siege happens each day that passes the Army gets closer and closer to the city some options will open and other options will close as the decisions that you make along the way will shift and change the decisions that villains and allies also take plus many of the important events on the adventure and even certain roaming bosses have very specific schedules that they follow so players can learn of unfolding events and take initiative or they can arrive too late or too early with consequences either way on the same vein our villains have their own objectives that they are seeking to fulfill leaving them alone to mind their own business might close or even open new options for you to explore in the adventure in Sands of Doom options and choice comes at the Forefront when the undead Army sieges the city all the choices that you have made along the way will come to Bear whether it be who fights at your side how much power has the enemy collected or maybe even whether Lord ammu will be the one Leading The Horde or not this is an adventure filled with Secrets an adventure where even failure can lead to newer opportunities Sans of Doom is a 5th edition campaign for characters level 1 to level 11 and right now it is the last week for you to get it click the link in the video description and check it out I have put my heart and soul onto this project and I know that you will love it we are running out of time so thank you so much for your support and now on to the video to tell this story it is important to go back back about 1500 years ago before the mirror of dead man even existed back then this land was prosperous and fertile and on it was a small Kingdom called uth Tower and the kingdom had just lost his King and then chaos ensued when it came time to announce the successor see the king had sired twins both of which had a claim to the throne so what the Council of the Kingdom decided upon was to sort of split the kingdom in such a way so as to Grant each son their own peas and then they commissioned perfectly identical regalia for each of them and included in this were identical crowns that each would bear the creator of the crowns was the High Mage of the Kingdom a man named ini herb he Enchanted the crowns so as to Grant the Kings a lot of different protections such as a basic protective magic the ability to teleport and of course immunity to spells that would see to manipulate them you know the sort of basic important stuff that you would want on your king however in order to better promote peace between the two kings he also designed the crowns so that the two wearers would be able to not just speak to each other but also feel each other's feelings these were called the twin crowns of miramaran but individually one was called the twin crown of uth Tower and the other was called the twin crown of yarlith the magical enchantments grounded upon the crowns worked wonderfully to achieve these aims and a long lasting peas was enjoyed between the two neighboring kingdoms but then of course Orcs invaded the lands the massive Army known as the ever horde came to be a massive collection of Orcs leadered by illithids assaulted all of the lands of the north a forcing many kingdoms to band together in order to fight it unfortunately the kingdom of yarlith was destroyed by the everhard before the oryx were repelled Neverwinter also almost fell to them but survived thanks to a gold dragon named palerendus which we already know very well of a staunch defender of the city now the ever horde was eventually defeated but the armies of the Allied kingdoms were decimated and much to their demise another oracord grows up only two years after from the south this time coming from the high more south of the Great Peak Mountains and the fields of the Dead the armies struggled to create yet another unified front against this horde and instead collected a smaller Army at an Old Tower that used to belong to the kingdom of uth tower the tower was in fact the Tower of an old archmage from the kingdom one who happened to be named iniarb yep the same one who had previously created the crowns for the old twin Kings a few Generations ago the battles between the armies and the oryx roused the old wizard who by now was a lich it appeared he had performed the ritual onto on death to preserve his existence and now be being woken up by armies fighting it came out and started slinging powerful Spells at both sides dramatically hurting both armies with the Kingdom's armies being forced to retreat the Orcs had gained an entrance onto the uth tower kingdom and now started destroying it quote as his kingdom crumbled about his throne King uth VII dispatched the necessary to iniorb beseeching the Lich to honor his alliance with the people of Ruth Tower and dispatch the invading Orcs with cruel humor in near honored the request by unleashing spells that caused the ocean to rise up and inundate the land countless humans them humans and oryx were drowned in the resultant flood when the water is receded they left behind a sprawling saltwater mirror that smothered the ones virgin land transforming its topography and spelling the Doom of the Century's Old Kingdom of uth those humans and demi-humans who survived the Deluge quickly fled to other Realms while all the oryx retreated to the sword mountains and quote and that's how the mirror of dead men came to be a swamp filled with literally countless dead that either float in his waters are buried in the muck or still walk as Undead to this day now what does any of this have anything to do with boragamanthar well a lot see voragamanthar is an adult black dragon and he is currently the overlord of the mirror of dead men even though he is just an adult and not an ancient dragon he's still a challenge rating 20 creature thanks to his ability to cast spells as an 11th level sorcerer so already being a cr20 creature and having a lot of room to grow boats fairly well for him but that is not at all the reason that he is particularly special you might wonder how does a simple cr-20 dragon hold this swamp so effectively say versus any other dragon or adventurers that might wish to cleanse the mirror or any of the various types of monsters that are found on this location from Undead to UNT well vorigamanthar has a secret a secret that is probably known to only three maybe four creatures in the entirety of pharoon and one of those creatures is the secret bergamantar the black dragon known as the Black Death of the mirror of dead men is actually two black dragons they are in fact twins together they use the name boragamandar pretending to be One Singular dragon in order to get an advantage against any of the Myriad of creatures that they deal with all the time their true names are westlim and wulzaur and they were born with an extremely interesting Quirk where they in fact have an empathic link with each other through this link provided that they are within line of sight of each other they can telepathically speak with one another freely and if they are not within line of saturation each other they can communicate by sharing each other's emotions though throughout the centuries they have learned to convey very specific meanings based on the feeling of each other's emotions so for example certain flavors of anger and stress might indicate a come to me sentence or a combination of curiosity and playfulness that indicate a I have company hide nearby sentence this empathic link that they share transforms what otherwise would be an impossible alliance between two black dragons into one where they both perfectly trust each other and perform strategy and planning together in a symbiotic effort they never have or will ever betray each other and will even die for one another of course because secretly they do fear what would happen to the other if one of them were to die deducing that the empathic link that they share would drive the other mad if one were to perish see one of the greatest weaknesses of dragon kind especially those of chromatic dragons is their inability to work together to achieve a common goal cool this is in fact one of the reasons dragons don't quite rule the world right now extremely powerful dragons like cloth are the tourists or gloglymatar as powerful as they are and they are ultimately forced to contend with the fact that they are alone and alone you can only achieve so much viragamanthar breaks this mold being one of the only dragons that can do it threatening to shatter everything that we understand about what is possible for a dragon to do especially so if they happen to achieve their goals westlim and will sour were born from the same egg as twins an extremely rare thing because normally one of the babies will eat the other using their mental connection they slaughtered the rest of their brothers on the nest and escaped the ire of their mother running from place to place hiding away from their mom they eventually heard the stories of the mirror of dead men the same story that I just told you at the beginning of this video the story of the legendary twin crowns of Warren all the kings from the kingdoms of uth Tower and yarlith were the crowns and through them they could communicate with each other and feel each other's emotions however the stories passed down through the generations claimed that the powers of the crown were never greater than when they were warned by the twin brothers that the crowns had special Magics that could only be unlocked when worn by twins this is what drove the Twin Dragons to the mirror when the oryx assaulted the kingdom and the Lich in yarva flooded it all the crowns were drowned alongside them the crowns were somewhere in the mirror and the dragons wanted to find them plus the old Dragon who used to rule over the mirror had just disappeared see the the first black dragon that moved on to the mirror like right as the mirror came to be was the black dragon known as chargencia ravitriol a dragon that eventually came to be known as the even death however after centuries of of governing the mirror even death it just disappeared nowhere to be seen this meant that the great treasure horde of evil death was also up for grabs a horde that was stipulated to be enormous since of course it would theoretically also be the wealth of the Old Kingdom of uth the wealth of a whole nation that the dragon had just stolen before I move on though if you are at all interested in playing in a campaign or a series of adventurers set here in the mirror of dead men then I would recommend checking out dungeon magazine number 69 70 71 72 and 73 each of these has an adventure set in the mirror and they are kind of meant to go together and tell a cohesive story there's also the digital sequel to The Dragon of ice buyer Peak there's also some content in there in the mirror so if you're at all interested you can check those out but okay anyway so let's talk a little bit about these crowns and what they would do for a boragamanthar if the dragons were to obtain them so quote in year of Enchanted powerful protections onto the twin crowns unknown to the rulers or subjects of either realm however the Mage Royal entwined additional enchantments onto the Royal head gear to serve its own aims the archmage had established his Abode on the western slopes of the sword mountains near the end of the reign of uth Tower's first king attracted by the solitary lifestyle he could establish there and relative peacefulness of the area iniave won the confidence of uth Tower's second Monarch and the title of Mage Royal to ensure the title would not fall to a rival wizard but otherwise cared little for the politics of the tiny realm when the Fletchling Kingdom threatened to dissolve onto civil Strife inyarv worked behind the scenes to ensure that an amicable truce would be achieved so as to pursue his studies of the art without disruption toward this end inyarva wove enchantment onto the twin crowns that would both ensure a harmonious relationship between their two bearers and allow in the earth to exercise a measure of control over both Crown bearers if he was forced by events to intervene once again individually each of the twin crowns of miramaran provides its Bearer numeral magical protections when worn such defenses include a plus 3 bonus to Armor class and all saving throws the protection of a mind-blank spell as well as immunity to all psionics spells from the school of Enchantment slash charm spells from the sphere of charm or spell-like magical effects duplicating them in addition the bearer can cast Shield Mirror Image fire Shield Iron Guard and teleport once per day each when the Twin crown of uth Tower and the twin crown of yarlith are worn at the same time by separate individuals an empathic link is formed between the bearers that allows them to sense the emotional state of each other at any time and communicate yet telepathy once per week as long as both are on the same plane when both crowns are worn by identical twins on the same plane of existence the regale he has full power has come to fruition the two bearers become linked in mind and soul while wearing the twin crowns to the point where they become almost a single sentience the twin Crown bearers can communicate it well over any distance and either twin can reach into the other's mind and cast spells their counterpart has memorized or regained activate magical items triggered by silent active will in the hands of the other twin or even cast spells on their own form and have them affect the other twin instead the most obvious effect of these Powers is to draw the crown bearers into a nearly unshackable friendship for as long as both continue to wear their Crown in most cases where the crown bearers have radically different ethos the weaker personality undergoes an alignment shift to that of the stronger personality in the case of identical twins the mental link forged by the twin crowns fused the bearer's identities to the point where they almost become one over time it becomes progressively more difficult for either Crown Bearer to remove his regalia to the point after many years that neither Crown Bearer can live for any length of time without the magically Enchanted empathic Bond despite the risks entailed by protracted bearing of the twin crowns and even more dangerous evil lurks behind the strength forged by the bearer's bond inyarv wove into them the power for a third individual to dominate both by means of a demand spell employable at will on either or both wearers assuming they are on the same plane of existence end quote therein lies the true strength and greatest weakness of the twin Crowns if westlim and wool's hour were to get access to these Magics they would Empower them of course but more importantly their minds and souls would be as one what one learns would immediately be learned by the other it would be as if a single draconic soul could control two entire draconic bodies in a perfect seamless fashion it could calculate using two brains it could perfectly orchestrate attacks from two fronts it would combine its true breath weapons it could attune to more magic items than any other dragon and they could cast twice the Spells than any other Dragon could cast a shield spell from one Dragon could affect the other regardless of how far they are sure Inferno has a challenge rating of 40 but what if these dragons eventually reach ancient status and then further are empowered by these relics to the point where they each become a cr-26 or even cr30 creature it's not crazy to think that two cr-30 creatures could beat a single cr-40 Monster but the question is of course has voragamanthar gotten the crowns well it's a bit unclear in the lore what we do now is that canonically they have one the dragons have been deceiving The Cult of the Dragon a little bit as you know the cult of the Dragon they go around the continent and attempt to persuade dragons into becoming Draco liches as a way to offer them immortality in exchange for the cold being able to sort of control them a little bit now the black dragons have been researching ways to achieve immortality and it is one of their highest priorities at the moment but they do fear on death and so generally consider it not an option to turn into a dragolitch however both westlim and wool sour are Master actors and have played The Cult of the Dragon for fools by pretending to be interested in the transformation in order to get Intel on what is happening outside of the mirror secretly of course they are just keeping them around with no intention on actually going through with it but one of the biggest reasons the dragons made this alliance with the cult in the first place is because it was the cult of the Dragon after all who transformed the Ebon death into a dragolich which happened right at the tower from which the kingdom got its name the uth tower the tower currently is lost submerged and hidden somewhere in the mirror and and everyone has been attempting to find it the cult of the dragon have ways to find it and so the dragon is playing along with them until the moment is opportune for a nice betrayal and again borgamandar is trying to find this Tower because they believe that it is there where the last Crown ought to be see the first Crown the one that they already have had actually already been found by the cult who was more than happy to give it to the dragons as a sign of Goodwill towards them you know working together the crown is currently being worn by westlim it's on what would be his big toe on his left hind leg and then the last ground that they need need is on this tower that they're basically trying to find now the reason why I say that it is a bit unclear whether they have or not the second Crown is because that is actually part of one of the adventures that I mentioned previously the eye of Merkel Adventure I'm Not Really Gonna spoil much but players get access to the crown and in the end it is basically up to them to figure out what to do with it now the adventure appears to be designed in such a way so as to make it very likely that the black dragons will get the crown in the end as in the default course of events is that the dragons get it but there are ways in which you could avoid it so yeah it's up for interpretation it is a shame because whether they have the second crown or not thus make an enormous difference in the State of Affairs of the area and not just in terms of the incredible power it would Grant to the dragons but the fact that if iniar of the Lich still happens to be alive then he could control the two dragons through the crowns and now you don't just have two enormously powerful black dragon but a lich involved as well and suddenly we start to see some apocalyptic level danger I will also mention that we actually have no idea whether inyev is alive or not after he created the mirror of dead men he basically just vanished his Tower does appear on a 5th edition adventure and you can even enter it but the lore doubles down on the fact that he is missing and it is a mystery whether he is even alive or not but now let's talk about the dragons themselves and their individual personalities and strategies so the viragamanthor dragons are very smart and very active players in this world unlike many of the other dragons see arvatures is just out there sulking over the loss of her master Chloe glamatar spends her time watching women in cities like it's some kind of TV show Inferno sleeps and practices there's like no action with these dragons it feels like they have found themselves at their Apex and now they just plateaued in brief I felt like was one of the few dragons that was out there they're like doing stuff well Westland and will sour don't actually care much if Dragons uh walk in on their territory they're not really playing the territory game they're not prideful at all they are scary calculating and if they can't benefit from an interaction with you they're likely to just let you pass through but if they do then you will usually see them coming these are not like traditional black dragons who just like jump up from stealth and attack you straight up instead they are actually very polite they're very manipulative and resourceful in particular if you're talking to will sour so both are studious creatures but will sour in particular likes to learn through socialization or activities he's really the most outgoing brother westlim on the other hand refers to read and study in private he's a bit more reserved however in combat it's interesting because the opposite is true the usually reserved West slim is typically the one who charges first to become the center of attention while the more outgoing brother will sour will instead hide in the water close by Will sour generally less versed in aerial and dry land combat so he sticks to what he's good at which is typically underwater and so as it would befit their strategy Westland typically has combat ready spells that improve its ability to survive in direct melee in particular he likes using the spell shield his signature spell however is enlarged where he further increases in size in order to draw in attacks against him and distract enemies away from his brother a will sour on the other hand will move about on scene either by moving through the water or by claiming Rocky outcroppings using the spell spider climb wool Sour's signature spell is an exclusive spell that he has called acidosis which basically just allows his blood to become pure acid so non-magical weapons that pierce him get destroyed by the acid plus there is a chance of him being struck that acid will Splash onto the attacker damaging them in return generally speaking the goal of their strategy is to bring enemies down onto the water where the black dragons would have an advantage so they will either try and push enemies down or grapple them into the water against flying creatures in particular against other dragons they will try and use their acid breath to burn away the enemy's Wings in order to then force them down the black dragons will then use their innate power to foul the water further sickening the enemy as it attempts to swim away from them quote in shallow water the worms employ Wing buffets to drive huge sprays of water at groups of opponents when done on a body of water that they have previously corrupted this tactic is extremely effective in inducing nausea in living opponents who cannot avoid ingesting some of the water end quote of course the the way they fight they do attempt to prevent an enemy from being able to see the two dragons at the same time remember that they are trying to keep the solution that it is just one dragon that they're fighting and so the way they move and Alternate attacks makes it seem as if boragamanthar is a dragon that can almost be in two places at once you might think he hidden a ruin further down the path only for the dragon to appear behind you with his breath weapon ready as you might think the dragon flew up above the tree line only for claws to rip out from underneath you quote they are cunning and a moral but never needlessly cruel or destructive they have little interest in base displays of power or in the acquisition of territory holding discretion to be the better part of valor and their own lives to be more important than any short-term Victory the dragons are skilled actors willing and able to adopt any Persona that advances their long-term aims they can read and reason as intelligently patiently and humbly as a timid human scholar and they thirst for knowledge in any form particularly if it relates to the art they seek to ensure their long-term survival through the acquisition of magical items and a ceaseless pursuit of immortality yet disdain the thought of on death end quote in terms of magical items Westland wears a ring of Wizardry which grants him extra first level spell slots he has a ring of fire resistance and of course the twin crown of yarlith will sour wears a powerful ring of invisibility and a ring of Mind shielding both of which help him hide both in and out of combat it's important to note that the name boragamanthar is attributed specifically to westlim so if the name is used for the purposes of scrying or something like that the Scribe will land on westlims so in spite of wool sour being the more like outgoing Dragon Westland is considered to be the face of the twins so whenever someone has to interact with the dragons it is westlim who shows up and that's why wool sour has the magic items that would let him hide especially ring of Mind shielding that would prevent him from having his mind read wool sour also carries six doses of air spores air spores are eaten in order to Grant you multiple days worth of riddable air into your lungs this is specifically used on prisoners that the dragons kidnap because what they do is they bury those prisoners in the mock so they basically give them the air spores so they can survive for days and then bury them trapped on the ground wool sour also carries a portal hole which is used to Ferry both treasure and those very same prisoners now in terms of their actual layer we only have a very small passage that says quote the black death and the rapacious Raider dwell in the heart of the mirror of dead men in a partially submerged keep above a Labyrinth of flooded tunnels end quote that is all we have as far as their Lair is concerned uh we don't really know anything about their treasure horde either but we do know that they generally don't really seem to care that much for gold they seem to be more than happy to sacrifice any amount of gold if it means that they are closer to their goals magical items on the other hand they do seem to respect and desire now so to end this video I leave you with this it is very likely that the borgamanthor brothers have the twin crowns of murmuran which is nothing short of scary on one hand they could be Become One Singular entity controlling two different bodies multiplying their strength in such a way that could surpass even the most powerful of dragons in a few centuries once they grow old enough on the other hand they could very well nowadays be mind controlled by an extremely powerful Lich the very same ledge convoked unimaginable power to create the very mere of dead men either track spells doomed to the lands around the swamp and makes it even harder for there to be any hope that the mirror of dead man could be cleansed in the future foreign thank you guys so much for watching make sure to click the link in the video description and check out Sans of Doom on Kickstarter I'm gonna go ahead and leave you with the trailer just in case you haven't seen it enjoy oh great sortana listen to my counsel do not send your men into that ruin [Music] the anubian treasures have awakened their importance of Doom whisper their coming the ruler of alkirat but these lands have always been theirs their monuments a testament to their might [Music] you will bear the plagues for your sacrilege the dead will roam the desert and paint the sun's crimson dust will storm Rivers will flood Will Rain from the very Stars seas and pestilence will cover your grass fields and soon enough even the sun will abandon you will come for you and your precious little city will fall you have imprisoned me for this prophecy I know something don't that he is not a tomb that is a prison we'll set him free remember to check out the campaign by clicking the link in the video description Sands of Doom on Kickstarter thank you guys so very much

Channel: MrRhexx

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Id: 2WXqb-I42ns

Length: 30min 32sec (1832 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 04 2023