person / Exalted or Excellence
Hephaestoos
Summary
Hephaestoos was the Exalted or Excellence of Air whose army attacked the Tabaxi, the Dunnen People, and surrounding lands in 29 years BD, before the Dome was created. After Garadule called for aid, Garadule and a group of mages defeated him, but his soul later survived and sought a pact that might release him. Hephaestoos’s four-armed vulture-man body was found at the Riversmeet Menagerie and Old Mage School, while former worshippers and vulture people eventually sought acceptance among the Dunnen People. His defeat, body, and continuing influence remain entangled with Garadule, the elemental conflict, and the origins of the Dome.
Known Details
- Day 24 records that in 29 years BD, Hephaestoos formed an army that attacked the Tabaxi, the Dunnen people, and surrounding lands.
- Garadule, a friend of the Dunnen people, called for aid; two years later he returned with mages and defeated Hephaestoos.
- A desert laboratory statue commemorated Hephaestoos’s death and identified him as the Exalted or Excellence of Air.
- The same statue listed Evalina Hartwall in dragon form among the figures commemorating Hephaestoos’s defeat.
- Day 44 identifies the four-armed vulture-man body making rudimentary Dunnen-style pots in the Riversmeet old mage school as Hephaestoos’s body; the Dunnen-style work complicates the body’s identity and later Garadule connection.
- Day 42 records Hephaestoos reading Morgana’s mind, warning her not to free an air entity, wanting to clean the land, and having a door protected by ninth-level Banishment.
- Day 43 records Hephaestoos as only his soul, wanting a pact so the party would let him out, and saying he had been asked to attack the Dome, possibly by Browning.
- User confirmation identifies the Day 45 and Day 47 source spellings previously misread as Hephaestoos as Hephaestoos.
- On Day 45, Morgana tried to reincarnate the incomplete spirit associated with the Hephaestoos/vulture-man body rather than the body itself; the result was a green-haired elven body with divine energy who identified himself as Garadule.
- A Day 47 diary said Evalina and Argentum wanted to help Garadule, that the elementals fought in Hephaestoos’s name, that Garadule had trouble fighting them, and that Hephaestoos seemed more powerful than expected.
- Day 58 records vulture people and former Hephaestoos worshippers integrating with the Dunnen’s and possibly being accepted after three years.