What do the shianti look like?

[GJD]

OK, I'm setting up a LW campaign wherin the players are trying to stop the escape of a Aragashii from a shianti created underground mystical prison. During their war with the aragashii, this one was too powerful to be destroyed and the Shianti used heap big ju-ju to lock it away in a cavern below ground. 2500 years later the Darklords have figured out where it is, and want to recruit this unstoppable smushing machine to their cause of destruction, damage, looting pillaging and general naughtiness.

The first adventure will see the heroes exploring a derelict castle at the tip of Point Vashna, and comming into conflict with various gribblies until they reach the chamber where the great magical seal is located. The bad guys will be trying to destroy the seal, and hopefully our heroes will prevent them.

I then want the spirit of one of the Shianti to appear to them and give a bit of exposition as to how bad the horror below is, and how his strength is fading blah blah blah only a year until the monster gets free and so they must find a way to kill it, bind it or banish it forever.

But, I don't know what the shianti look like. I could go with a disembodied voice, but I'd kind of like to do the whole ghostly apparition thing.

Any ideas, or even better, are the shianti pictured anywhere?

G.

 

[Holmes]

I know there's a group shot of several Shianti wishing Grey Star well on his voyage in the opening of the first Grey Star gamebook, but other than that, I'm afraid I don't recall what they look like...

 

[Greg Smith]

From 'Eclipse of the Kai':

'Their skins were black as ebony, and their eyes were yellow. The only food they required was air. Their powers were those of demigods: they were immortal and invunerable; they could create and destoy through the mildest exercise of will. Yet they were not omnipotent.'

 

[Reginald de Curry]

According to the Grey Star series, the Shianti's eyes are perfect mirrors.

There was a discussion on the same topic on the Project Aon boards a couple months back. Click link to view.

http://projectaon.proboards30.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&num=1085053852

 

[Anonymous]

I like my own personal homogonized version of what they look like:

tall, slender, ghostly white skin, eyes like shimmering silver reflective pools, (kind of like the stargate in that movie) Their hair and clothing move as if a spectral wind is passing by them, and their voices are strong and echo through the dimensions. The mere sight of them by a moral almosts makes them gasp in awe.

hope that helps.

 

[adgramaine]

I like my own personal homogonized version of what they look like:

tall, slender, ghostly white skin, eyes like shimmering silver reflective pools, (kind of like the stargate in that movie) Their hair and clothing move as if a spectral wind is passing by them, and their voices are strong and echo through the dimensions. The mere sight of them by a moral almosts makes them gasp in awe.

hope that helps.

cross this with Judi Dench's elemental character from Chronicles of Riddick, and that's how I would describe/run them.....

 

[chrono_hal]

A perfect example of why so many people dislike the Legends. The description of the shianti by John Grant doesn't fit at all with the one given by Ian Page and Paul Bonner in Grey Star. Ok, you could answer that it's minor and that he can have is own vision, and that he's an artist, et al.

But two things are relevant :

"Their skins were black as ebony, and their eyes were yellow."

Anyone who has played the Grey Star books knows that the mirror-like eyes of the shiantis are a very important detail in the Page's books. (think of the Kundi's poem at the end of book #1 and the beginning of book #2 !)

And this :

"they were immortal and invunerable"

Just like everything from John Grant's imagination huh ? Just like Qinefer, Alyss & co.
If the Shiantis are invulnerable, how could Grey Star kill one ?

 

[Eternalknight]

One could, if one really wished, think of it as two different versions of history.

If one wished.

Or you could just put it down to John Grant changing things at a whim.

 

[chrono_hal]

One could, if one really wished, think of it as two different versions of history.

Then I just have to know which version of the story the Lone Wolf RPG I've bought is based on.

If one wished.

Or you could just put it down to John Grant changing things at a whim.

Whim, it is, really. As I said elsewhere, the Legends of Lone Wolf are linked to Lone Wolf only by the title. Actually, they're the Legends of John Grant's Mary Sues.

You can't blame me for something John Grant himself has half-admitted : he never had any real interest for Lone Wolf's adventures or Magnamund. He just wanted to integrate it in his own multiverse and put his super-female-heroes-with-large-breasts-and-a-big-sword in it. (There still should be, I believe, an interview where he explains all that on his website.)

The appearance of the shiantis is just an example among others. Following John Grant, there is only six Lorestones. And so on. There is dozens of such minor errors or approximations in the Legends which let the reader think that, really, the author simply did not care. Nothing criminal, of course, but on the long run, very irritating for a Magnamund fan.

And now, of course, if one likes the Legends, perfect. It's a matter of taste. As for myself, I just don't regard them as a valid source on Magnamund.

 

[Eternalknight]

Oh, I know what they really are, I was just trying to offer an excuse

I like them for what they are, but as a definitive source on Magnamund, no.