Queen of Air and Darkness

[Banshee16]

Have there ever been stats given for the Black Diamond, the artifact that supposedly corrupted the Queen of Air and Darkness, leader of the Unseelie Fey?

I've been looking, but can't find any references. At the very least, have there been descriptions of what it does, in a general sense?

I'm trying to stat her up for 3.5, but that's a missing piece of the puzzle. I've never created an artifact, so a frame of reference would be helpful.

Banshee

 

[Alzrius]

Unfortunately, I don't believe that the Black Diamond has ever been explained or given stats, which is a shame since it's a very cool concept for an artifact - something so powerful and so evil that it utterly corrupted an intermediate deity who touched it, turning her into little more than its divine puppet.

Now that's what an evil artifact should be like!

Beyond its initial mention in the Queen of Air and Darkness's writeup in Monster Mythology, the Black Diamond is mentioned again in Dragon #251 as having been used by the Queen to (along with Lolth's help) create the Kyrashar Rose, another evil artifact.

Unfortunately, I think those are the only instances in all of D&D where the Black Diamond is mentioned.

 

[jonesy]

Was the white diamond that Titania had as her symbol just that, or was there an actual white diamond artifact?

 

[DMH]

Bastion Press' Fairies has stats for her, but I don't remember if it has a description of the diamond.

 

[Thanael]

Check out Planewalker, the Greyhawk Wiki and the Dicefreaks fey project for some more details:

Seelie Court - Ghwiki
Queen of Air and Darkness | Planewalker
The Fey | Planewalker

Dicefreaks d20 Community • View topic - MythMage's Alternate Monsters
Dicefreaks d20 Community • View forum - Songs of the Sidhe

 

[Banshee16]

Bastion Press' Fairies has stats for her, but I don't remember if it has a description of the diamond.

Actually, I'm using Bastion Press' Faeries as a baseline right now. I'm also mining Tad Williams' "shadowline" series of novels for some of my inspirations. The Queen of Air and Darkness, Titania, and Oberon aren't deities per se......they are very old, very powerful Feorin nobles......children of a true diety and a feorin. That gives me the ability to mix in some of the other, even older faerie such as Queen Maab, Herne the Hunter, Jack in Irons, The Fool etc. The Queen of Air and Darkness, Titania and Oberon are quasi deities as a result. They might be high level....between 25 and 40 lvls.......but not full fledged deities. I'm integrating some ideas about fey being hedged out by holy symbols, being barred from entering temples of mortal deities etc......it wouldn't make sense for them to have full deities if they could enter churches. I kind of see them on a similar level as demon lords or archdevils.

I figure that the Queen of Air and Darkness was corrupted by the black diamond......maybe it's done something "unnatural" by the standards of the faerie. Maybe it's given her some of the powers of a true diety (except for the ability to grant spells). That's kind of where I've been leaning.

I've been reading the work by dicefreaks and it's cool, bur it looks like the project has died as there have been almost no updates in a year. And they seem to have the faerie court as deities which is different from how I've envisioned them.

I'm playing with the idea of a love triangle between the queen of air and darkness, Oberon and Titania. Maybe the queen of air and darkness wanted Oberon (or titania) but was rejected and turned to this artifact the black diamond for the power it would give her, mistakenly thinking it would win her the love of the being she desired, but instead of getting her wish, it's evil corrupted her. She might have been chaotic neutral before but the artifact corrupted her completely to evil.

I just don't know what it would actually *do* aside from that.

So, while I try to figure that out, I've been starting up Baba Yaga.

Banshee

 

[Banshee16]

Check out Planewalker, the Greyhawk Wiki and the Dicefreaks fey project for some more details:

Seelie Court - Ghwiki
Queen of Air and Darkness | Planewalker
The Fey | Planewalker

Dicefreaks d20 Community • View topic - MythMage's Alternate Monsters
Dicefreaks d20 Community • View forum - Songs of the Sidhe

Thanks for that last link...I hadn't seen the stats for the Queen of Air and Darkness in the dicefreaks project. Having her as an elder evil is a good idea. That's in general what I was thinking......though I went with a high-fey unseelie Feorin wizard 25/loremaster 5. I've also been toying with the idea of the corruption aspect of shadow magic from the tome of magic and thinking that the black diamond corrupted her magic by making her gain levels in shadowcaster and eventually noctumancer. That would be fairly corrupt and alien compared to ordinary fey....

Banshee

 

[Banshee16]

Check out Planewalker, the Greyhawk Wiki and the Dicefreaks fey project for some more details:

Seelie Court - Ghwiki
Queen of Air and Darkness | Planewalker
The Fey | Planewalker

Dicefreaks d20 Community • View topic - MythMage's Alternate Monsters
Dicefreaks d20 Community • View forum - Songs of the Sidhe

I think one of my concerns with the dicefreaks project is the overall power levels. The Daonie Sidhe are CR18 which is rather powerful. I've kind of seen the Bastion Press take on Faeries as allowing me to reconcile the presence of elastin as faerie lords in 4e.....so now I just replace eladrin with Feorin and faerie and keep eladrin as outsiders on Arborea.

Banshee