Talk_Kage Tenjin

Think I'm going to try and fill out this profile today, so I'm going to put some notes here on discussion for I get to the meat of the Article.

Kage is one of the long-lasting PC's in our group, and has had his history ret-conned several times since he was first a Shadow-Mage Cook in Thay. The fact that when we got to filling in the "what's up with Kage" we decided that the black eyes and blood were because he was a human host to Nightmare really means that several earlier events in his story need to retcon or deal with.

Why the hell was he posing as a cook in Thay?

I think the best explanation at this point for Kage's presence in the first Thay campaign is probably Sherry. He was there to give her the dream of the first Planescape campaign.

Speaking of that, what about the PS campaign? That game is directly contradicted by almost everything following it.

Since it is so contradicted, I know we're pretty well disposed to discard it. But I think there was some use from that campaign. For example, it's the last time the person who forged the Eternal Dream showed up in any form or fashion. I'd like to posit that the fact that Dream's creator's disappearance from our narrative is tied to the fact that the game appears to be non-cannonical. The entirety of that game was a trap, designed either by Nightmare or people attempting to get control of Nightmare (Shadovar stand in good stead here). You lure Skyler (I have come to dislike this name as much as all things one thought was "uber-cool" when they were 16, but we have no better name) into a trap and then collapse all of reality on him. That timeline and everyone who lived in it is now trapped outside out all possible pasts and futures, with the exception of the thing that created the trap, Nightmare.

Sherry was likely the closest incarnation of a player in what actually happened in that campaign, so you give her some adjusted memories of what happened and you create a magically potent pawn who can be used to help "protect" the Nightmare shards from any of the very bad people who have their hands on them, and possibly even a host should circumstances require it.

That's a pretty big rewrite, and pretty cold.

Yes, but given that the character turned out to be pretty much the primary villain of the saga, I think some amount of ret-conjuration is in order, starting with tapping Kage down a step on the alignment chart.

So what is Kage's disposition in each segment of the campaign?

Season 2– Timeline-wise, the first season. Nightmare has just taken over "Nerick Spellchaser" and its full effects on him are not yet evident (no black eyes, gray skin, etc.). The events of this season help awaken Kage, who sees an opportunity to finally win the long-game: reassemble Nightmare and annihilate everything. Hey's he the incarnation of destruction in the multiverse; if he's not an omnicidal maniac, who is?

:Dan's Thay Game– Kage, now fully manifesting the signs of a host of Nightmare, heads to Thay to activate a pawn. No, Kage doesn't know she's destined to be one of the chosen, he just knows there's a person in Thay who can serve as a stand-in for one of the people who helped Nightmare remove Skyler from the board. He sticks with the Elaith long enough to plan the dreams in Sherry's head, then vanishes to the deep shadow.

:Intermission– Here is probably the first place Kage uses the Schism Stone, intentionally creating Kage Tenjin, a Kage who doesn't remember the whole truth. The original Kage (probably Special K) now has a perfect sock puppet playing the other side of the game.

:Season 1– Dorian gets in touch with Kage about Midnight, Kage responds because he's worried it might be a Nightmare shard (his goal now to keep them out of the hands of madmen), and gets sucked into the madness that is life with Dorian and Hyacinth. This leaves Special K free to move around in other places, quietly killing off other host and building his own collection of Nightmare Shards while letting just enough slip into Kage's hands to let him rebuild the handle by the start of season three.

:Afterward– What happens can pretty much happens on-page (so to speak), with Kage Tenjin collecting the Nightmare shards believing that he can limit the damage that will be caused while instead of being a time bomb waiting to hand over all the party's shards to Special K.