Non-Spoiler Summary
In this bonus 121 episode, Karrion returns to the Temple of Kelemvor in Waterdeep to find the Church of Kelemvor changed from his last dealings twenty years ago. The cautious clergy summon his “mother”, Selwyn, who reveals some of his history and talks about his potential future.
Spoilered Catchup
Karrion returns to the House of the Ordered Passing, Kelemvor’s temple in Waterdeep. It is grander than he remembers and serves the City of Waterdeep as a coroner’s office and a morgue for the recently deceased so that they can continue to aid the Watch in their investigations.
His main aim is to locate representation from the Most Solemn Order of the Shroud, the group within the church that Karrion directly works for. His old mentor, Jethlyk, is long retired and Kayleigh the High Priestess is nervous of his return. She tells him that “Deathsbane” is an “alarmist name” and the church has moved away from such things.
She asks that he wait in their Dead Magic holding area and a few days pass before Selwyn, his “mother” can make her way from the Order’s base in Suzail.
Selwyn is older than Karrion remembers her, and she no longer wears the familiar goggles that were her trademark. Sadness is carried with her as she goes through the standard post-missions tests to check his “calibration”.
The Order has been wound down it seems, no longer in keeping with the church’s role in society. She has been sent to decommission Karrion, and at that moment pre-death, when their eyes meet and she sees the tenderness that he has developed she decides that “…it is fair in these last moments that you know a little of your history.”
She tells him that his ease of access to the arcane Weave is because he is the fusion of the mechanical with an organic lifeform – an elf from Cormanthor who was both a Loregiver and a Peacekeeper. Karrion’s being would be “in keeping with the desires” of the elf.
“They would have wanted their life to continue, I am sure.”
Selwyn semi-confidently to Karrion about the elf whose brain was used in the creation of Karrion.
This elf, Kalath Amenath Jalank Kotror of the House Durothil (Moonlit Still Waters in the tongue of the Ar’tel Quessir), was used as a vessel as he had an affinity with the weapon that Karrion was created to find. And being an elf, his mind and spirit were already geared towards the longevity that would be found existing with and in Karrion.
Selwyn stares into the eyes of Karrion and arrives at her Doom. She decides that she cannot decommission him. That she will set him free from the Order by proclaiming his destruction to her masters in Suzail and telling the Waterdhavian contingent that she took him back to Suzail with her.
She advises Karrion to learn techniques of meditation to allow him to become closer to his progenitor. Her final act is to give Karrion a small Sending Stone tuned to one she carries.
“Contact me if you have need of me.”
Karrion returns to Trollskull Manor with a lot weighing on his mind; his first job is to learn how to breath.