The history

Klangratch, the Axe of War

Klangratch was raised as a Vernal God from the dwarven stronghold of Grimkeep, which was destroyed late in the Vernal Wars by Great Muud. Never forgetting his dwarven heritage, Klangratch appeared as dwarf male with platinum hair and full beard, albeit about 5 times larger than an average dwarf. He invested much of his power into a mighty battleaxe, that was said to be able to slice through rock as though it were air.

Though many of the Vernal Gods were uneasy of Urlach's unconventional means of using the dead as fighters, Klangratch early saw the strategic advantage of this, and campaigned with Urlach for many battles. Together, they finally overthrew Great Muud, though the battle laid waste to Grimkeep and the surrounding mountains.

Though Klangratch held no qualms of using undead as shock troops, he never allowed Urlach to touch the dwarves in this manner. Perhaps mistrusting that Urlach would keep to this agreement, Klangratch enchanted a stone that would immediately release the souls of dwarves onto the wheel of rebirth, rendering the bodies not able to be raised as undead. To this day, the dwarves revere this stone as their most holy artifact.

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My idea

Given that the means to make dwarves undead is inside of Angkrag (and thus protected by their guards, etc.), I feel the Shrine of Klangratch should be able to be empowered to ward off undead as a means to even up the situation.

Without releasing too many details of the quest, to rescue a dwarf you have to enter Angkrag, leave Angkrag, journey to X-location that is out in the open. To enslave a dwarf, you have to enter Southgard/Rockholm, journey to Angkrag, etc. Thus, it is a bit easier to enslave dwarves than to rescue them. Furthermore, I notice a lot of Magnagorans bolt for X-location once someone is out of the mines as a "second chance" to circumvent the restoration whereas no such method exists for the other parties.

Anyhoo, I think the shrine should be empowered to have world-burn effects on any undead within the chamber and the chamber before it. Given the shrine was created to release undead, I would imagine it has some nasty effects against undead who just idle there waiting to strike.

I think it's supposed to be the way it is now, Narsrim, considering the pseudo Celest/Serenwilde alliance (thus, both sides having a mining village at this time), and the fact Magnagora has to go into BOTH enemy territories if they want some miners, too.

It could make for interesting RP though, especially if there was a counter quest to mess with the stone so it affected those who were NOT undead at the time.

Hmm. I'm not sure if we need more large, elaborate quests with significant effect. Look at the Ladantine/Marilynth quests. In Rhysus's essay, he talks about how these need to be changed so people don't burn out spending all their time trying to maintain the power of their city through questing etc, only to see their work unraveled by the other side. He brings up the fact that the Magnagorans can't focus on everything at once.

Adding a new contended quest with potentially significant effect (i.e. having a stone that could be reversed to hurt non-undead / undead with a quest for each side) would contribute to this form of burnout and put more stress on Mag, not less.

In fact, I would contend that not having a counterquest would serve Magnagora better than having one, counterintuitive as that may seem.

Then again, I'm not Magnagoran, so I wouldn't know.

Narsrim good idea, but it should only apply to undead dwarves. Any undead dwarf who gets close to the shrine, loses undeadiness.

It says he had no qualms with any non-dwarf undead, so why WOULD it affect say an undead Viscanti?

I predict the summoning of liches to this location if it gets changed.

Meh. It could be given its own little barrier thingie that repelled foul undead from being summoned there.